Chapter 523 Cheap Labor
As for the military, although it has no good impression of the landlord class in the former Ming Dynasty's ruling area, it still hopes to focus more on military operations of external expansion rather than bloody suppression within the rule. With a few more months of buffering period, the civil affairs and other departments will have more time to use other methods to coordinate and handle conflicts of interest in land relations. The people will also have a better understanding of Haihan land policy, so that they will not be distracted by it. And directly enter the state of opposition.
Another thing that makes the military happy is that the Executive Committee approved the motion submitted by the military to build a new military port on the Qiongbei coastline.
After occupying the Qiongbei area, the Haihan Navy's defense area has also expanded. The Qiongzhou Strait will become the navy's new key defense area. However, there is currently no dedicated military supply port on the Qiongbei coastline. Those who perform tasks in the Qiongzhou Strait The fleet could only temporarily requisition the naval camp outside Fucheng. However, the navy's ships are generally small in tonnage, and the berths are not suitable for the large ships of the Haihan Fleet. Main ships like the "Dignity Class" cannot sail into the water village berths and can only park in the Nandu River. A road to the land was built on the river with boats and springboards. If the Haihan Fleet wants to maintain its cruising density in the Qiongzhou Strait for a long time, it must have a suitable dedicated port locally.
There is no shortage of areas suitable for building ports near Qiongzhou Fucheng. In fact, it has been the main distribution center for maritime trade on Qiongzhou Island since ancient times. During the Northern Song Dynasty, the earliest port, Baishajin, also known as Shenying Port, was formed at the mouth of Nandu River. It is recorded in "Qiongzhou Prefecture Chronicles" written by Wanli of the Ming Dynasty that "the old name was Baishajin. Marshal Wang Guangzu of the Song Dynasty once opened it, but it was not settled. Chunyou Wushen suddenly had a hurricane, and it rushed into the harbor. People thought it was a divine response, hence the name."
As an important supply station on the Maritime Silk Road in the Middle Ages, Baishajin became the main port and cargo distribution center for Qiongzhou Island's foreign trade at that time. It was also a coastal defense fortress where naval forces were stationed in successive dynasties.
However, with the prosperity of Baishajin trade, the waterway here began to gradually become shallower due to sedimentation. Large ships were unable to enter the waterway. They often had to anchor outside Baishakou and wait until the tide rose to enter the dock. By the end of the Song Dynasty and the beginning of the Yuan Dynasty, the trade center gradually moved to the vicinity of Haitian, where the hydrological conditions were better.
This place turned out to be Haidian in later generations. In the fifth year of Kaibao in the Song Dynasty, that is, 972 AD, it was called "Haikou Pu" because of its location at the mouth of the Nandu River where it entered the sea. Historical records record that "we moved to Tianjin to build Pu, and when we crossed the sea from Pu, it was called 'Haikou Pu'." "Hong Kong'." The place name Haikou also got its name from this time.
However, the place that the Navy is interested in is not at the mouth of the Nandu River. Considering the particularity of military purposes, the military does not want warships and civilian ship docks to be merged together. At least there must be a certain separation like Victory Port. After repeatedly inspecting the coastal terrain near Qiongzhou Fucheng, the military selected the military port location as the Xiuying Port area in later generations. The coastal conditions and hydrological conditions here are more suitable for the construction of large ports, and there are no hidden dangers such as sedimentation channels that are common at river estuaries.
Of course, the cost of building a dedicated military port is not a small amount, and the arrangement of construction technicians is also an issue that cannot be ignored. If it were not for the necessity of setting up a military port in Qiongbei, it is estimated that the Executive Committee actually intends to push this large infrastructure project to next year - the Shilu project and several ports in Annan are still in the construction stage. Opening any large-scale construction site now will put great pressure on the Ministry of Construction.
For the Executive Committee, these troubles in the aftermath are actually sweet troubles. After all, the vast area of Qiongbei has finally been brought under the control of Haihan, and the Haihan regime has its own territory in the true sense. A piece of territory, it is worth paying some price for it.
The good news that followed was not limited to the pacification of Qiongbei. On November 5, the Changhua Engineering Headquarters sent a message back to the base camp, stating that the land channel from Changhua to Shilu has been fully connected, and 70% of the track laying progress has been completed. It is expected that the entire line will be opened to traffic in January next year. By then, the ore produced by Shilu Iron Mine will be transported from the deep mountains and old forests to the seaside through more than 30 kilometers of railway tracks.
And this project does not end with the completion of the rail line. In fact, the completion of the rail line only completes one-third of the overall project. At both ends of the rail line, Changhua and Shilu will have to build coal mines respectively. Iron composite industrial base and large-scale open-pit iron mine. The amount of work in these two places is also quite huge, and it will not be much easier than building this track.
The scale of Changhua Port has also rapidly expanded from a small fish port a year ago to a medium-sized cargo terminal that can dock more than ten 400-ton cargo ships at the same time. Its main task is to receive a large number of cargoes sent from Heitu Port. Coal is burned, and the steel that will be refined locally is shipped from here.
However, as the local chief administrative officer, Qiao Zhiya really didn't feel much excitement. He had just received the report submitted by the civil affairs and judicial departments, which contained statistics on casualties since the start of the Changshilu Project. During the past fifteen months of construction, the death toll among local labor camp servicemen was 827 and 440 injured. The injuries here only count injuries that directly affect the ability to work. Most of the injured are disabled. As for general minor injuries, they are not recorded in this statistics at all. However, the loss rate of the hard laborers was quite acceptable and did not exceed the warning line set by the Executive Committee, and no incidents similar to riots occurred in the hard labor camps.
In addition to these cheap laborers, 28 people among locally hired workers were killed and nine were injured. Seventeen of the naturalized citizens died in the line of duty, and 11 became disabled due to injuries. This casualty rate also sets a record for the highest number of casualties in a single project in the history of the Haihan Project.
The only good thing is that no accidents happened to the time-travelers from various departments who were sent here to perform tasks. Everyone left here safely after completing their work. Although some people fell ill on the construction site along the way, fortunately, they were treated promptly and no serious problems were caused.
But Qiao Zhiya also knew that he did not have much time to feel compassion for others. He signed his personal opinions on it, then took out his seal, stamped the last page of the report, and handed it to the attendant next to him. The attendant put the document into a manila envelope and carefully put a wax seal on it. This report will be sent to the Executive Committee tomorrow along with the regular flight to Victory Port. At the latest three or four days, the Executive Committee's executive meeting should discuss the proposal to send more hard labor camp personnel to serve in the Changhua area. .
As for the personnel loss data in the report, Qiao Zhiya estimated that no one would pay too much attention to it. After all, the "pirates" and the militia gained a lot from this attack on Qiongbei and took a lot of people into custody. Although it is inconvenient for the people kidnapped by "pirates" to reappear on Qiongzhou Island, these prisoners of war who were sent to Heitu Port to mine coal can completely replace the local hard labor and send them to Qiongzhou Island to perform labor service. As for Qiongzhou Island, or Hainan Island as it is called according to the internal documents of the Executive Committee, the number of prisoners currently included in the hard labor camp is still about 6,000, which can be regarded as a large army of cheap labor.
However, the vast majority of them will be sent to work in the Shilu Iron Mine located in the interior of Qiongxi for a period of time in the future. As for how many people can leave that place well, then no one Guaranteed. All the Executive Committee cares about is the time it takes for the iron ore to be put into production and how many lives of prisoners will be consumed in the process. That is not the top priority. Compared with the value of hundreds of tons of steel, these cheap labor are indeed consumables that no one cares about. After proposing slave trafficking to the Portuguese, shrewd Portuguese merchants had begun transporting slaves to areas controlled by Haihan. However, most of them were natives they captured on the islands in Southeast Asia, and only a handful were African slaves that the Haihan people hoped to obtain.
These Southeast Asian natives are not only thin and have limited physical strength, but they are also extremely lazy. After all, in the environment they live in, even if they don't grow food, there are endless sources of wild fruits to eat. As long as they are willing to open their mouths, they will never die of hunger. This environment also created their habit of being lazy and lazy. Even though the Haihan people used various punishment methods, they did not have very good results on these naturally lazy Southeast Asian natives.
Of course, a high-ranking Haihan official like Qiao Zhiya will not worry about the laziness of these slaves. What worries him is the foreman of the hard labor camp who directly manages these foreign slaves. If the engineering tasks assigned to them cannot be completed on time, then the foreman will also suffer corresponding consequences. Punishments - such as reducing food supply, canceling various special treatments, and in the most serious cases, they may even be removed from the position of foreman and become a slave again.
"Stand up for me!" With a clear crack of the whip, several skinny slaves with dark skin got up from the ground with frightened faces and tried their best to pull a flatbed cart filled with logs. However, it was probably due to lack of strength. Even though several people were trying their best, the car still didn't move at all.
"Try harder! Feeding pigs is more useful than feeding you!" the foreman yelled mercilessly, and the whip in his hand kept dancing in the air, making the nearby slaves tremble with fear.
The cursing foreman picked up two more slaves from the side and joined in before finally pushing the heavy cart. The foreman walked to the side of the road, picked up the bamboo tube containing spring water and drank a few sips of it. Only then did he feel that the anger in his heart had finally subsided a little.
But before he could recover, someone shouted: "Li Maozi!"
"Here!" the foreman responded, throwing down the bamboo tube and running quickly towards the place where the sound came from: "I'm here!"
This foreman named Li Maozai was the traitor who led the bandit leader Liao Dabi to attack Lijiazhuang in Guangdong. He narrowly escaped with his life outside Lijiazhuang, but was captured by the Haihan militia. After being sent to Sanya, he was naturally thrown into a hard labor camp as a coolie. However, this guy was pretty tough, and he actually managed to survive in the hard labor camp for more than a year. Then, because of the "old men leading the new" structure in the camp, he was promoted to be the leader of a certain cell. After another six months Because of his good performance, he was promoted to foreman and then sent to Changhua to join the road construction army.
Of course, this foreman is not that foreman, and the work Li Maozi does is not the same as that of a naturalized migrant foreman. Not only does he have to supervise the construction progress of the laborers, but he also has to assume corresponding responsibilities. If the team under his command fails to complete the task on the same day, he will not only be reprimanded by his superiors, but may also receive corresponding measures to reduce his salary.
Li Maozai has now lived in a dormitory with eight people to a room, and enjoys a regular and rationed meal supply. The treatment is far better than that of those thirty or forty people who squeeze into a hut, only have a bowl of gruel for each meal, and can't finish the work. Slaves who are also punished with food deprivation are much better. He doesn't want to go back to the living conditions he had when he entered the hard labor camp in the first year, so even though there are heavy labor tasks every day, he will still try his best to supervise the completion of these hard labors.
However, he was very dissatisfied with the recent batch of slaves. These island monkeys were all extremely lazy. They would not move unless whips hit them. Not to mention compared to the Han people, even compared to Annan, which is separated by a sea. People also vary widely in their working abilities. Moreover, these monkey slaves have extremely poor physical strength. It can often take only two or three people to do the same work as one Han man. Their brains are also quite difficult. It takes a long time to learn a simple operation process. After bringing this group of people, Li Maozi has not been able to complete 7 days of work tasks on time this month. That means he's going to pay a serious price over the next month - losing a steady supply of food for at least seven days.
For this matter, Li Maozi also approached the cadres of the hard labor camp, but the cadres who were naturalized civilians did not have any good solutions to this problem. So Li Maozi could only find a solution on his own - such as using more severe corporal punishment to force these monkey slaves to work and drain every ounce of strength from them.
This did indeed improve labor efficiency, but the cost was also very obvious. Seven of Li Maozai's hard laborers died within half a month. Although these people were not beaten to death by him, and some of them may even have suffered from diseases caused by acclimatization after crossing the sea from near the equator, or from physical exhaustion caused by excessive labor intensity, etc., the cadres When counting the casualties of hard labor, there is no doubt that this account will be placed on Li Maozai.
At this time, the cadre who called Li Maozi over for questioning was also asking about this matter: "I heard that two more of your men died last night. What was the situation?"
Li Maozi complained endlessly: "This... this is really not my fault!"
(End of chapter)