Chapter 777: Huge Advantage
Strong infrastructure capabilities are undoubtedly one of the biggest magic weapons for Haihan to quickly expand its territory. Compared with its counterparts in this era, it took 20 to 30 years, or even longer, to establish a mature colonial area overseas. level, Haihan's colonization speed was enough to dwarf its contemporary competitors.
Since the early cross-sea colonization of Heitu Port and the Pearl River Estuary, Haihan's colonial plan has been rapidly improved and strengthened in practice. How to choose and plan a foothold, how to build a colonial settlement from scratch, how to achieve basic self-sufficiency in a short period of time and produce profitable output in the future, and how to effectively incorporate it into Haihan In the administrative management system of China, Haihan has relied on nearly four hundred years of accumulated experience to overcome these problems that have made competitors from other countries difficult.
How to quickly determine a suitable colonial site in an unfamiliar overseas environment is undoubtedly Haihan's strength. Other competitors need to spend years and months of hard work, even at the cost of countless properties and many lives, before they can find a foothold with a suitable environment in the vast unknown world. However, Haihan executives only need to face the information in the computer database. Use the satellite map to call up the famous port cities of later generations one by one. After comparing them, weigh your own needs and practical difficulty, and then choose the most suitable location.
Finding a foothold is only the first step in colonial construction. Due to limitations in natural conditions and transportation means, the population size of the early colonists who arrive at the foothold is often very limited, and even building a living place takes a long time. time. During this period, subsequent material supplies were likely to be intermittent due to the long sea journey, which would greatly slow down the construction process of the entire colony. Some colonial sites are even too far away from the base camp, and the immigrants who move there are more like exiled prisoners. For a long time, they can only rely on the most primitive farming, animal husbandry and fishery to make a living. What extra output, let alone making profits through trade to expand the size of the colony.
Haihan's ability to plan and implement the colonization process can simply beat his contemporary competitors. Before opening a new colonial site, the relevant departments have already made corresponding plans, such as preliminary resettlement. The number of immigrants, the design and construction of infrastructure projects, subsequent supply and supply, as well as security, regional function settings, etc.
Since Haihan has relatively detailed geographical information in his hands, every new settlement is developed with a strong purpose. If there are rich exploitable resources in the local area, such as Heitu Port, Shilu and other places, Either it is a relatively important waterway hub, such as Wanshan Port, which was occupied at the Pearl River Estuary in the early days, and Hong Kong Island, which was later taken over by Haihan. The other is that the local port has very superior port conditions. It would be a shame not to occupy it first. themselves, such as Cam Ranh Port in Annan and the soon-to-be-developed Kaohsiung Port in Tainan.
This kind of colonial development process with a strong purpose is much smarter than the competitor's method of spreading the net everywhere, which is mostly for the purpose of occupying land. The concentrated use of resources compresses the early construction process of the Haihan colony. In a short period of time, immigrants will not need to worry about future livelihood issues after arriving locally, as relevant departments have already made planning arrangements for them. Since it is an island like the Ambrosia Islands that is isolated in the South China Sea and does not have many natural resources for development, the Ministry of Agriculture has also prepared a wide variety of tropical cash crop planting projects for it. The future output in this area will be The benefits are still worth looking forward to.
Another point in colonial development is the management problem caused by distance, which is almost unsolvable for Haihan's competitors. The problem caused by the long sea voyage is not only the slow transmission of information, but also the It is easy to cause misunderstandings and conflicts between colonies and the mother country, and between colonies due to poor communication. Over time, some irreconcilable problems may easily arise. Haihan also has a unique advantage in this regard. The radio station is an artifact that allows Haihan to maintain a smooth information exchange system among the colonies. It can be used in various fields such as politics, economy, and military. Means to maintain the colony's sense of belonging and obedience to Haihan.
Based on technological advantages and geographical data accumulation that surpassed the times, it is not difficult to understand Haihan’s impressive achievements in colonial development and construction. Although Li Nai has limited understanding of the various black technologies in Haihan's hands, he has witnessed Haihan's continuous expansion little by little in the past few years and has personal feelings about it.
Not to mention Annan, which is far away, Wanshan Port at the Pearl River Estuary and Zhennan Port were two ports developed by Haihan. The Li family was involved in them. Li Nai visited these two places more than ten times. This was the eighth time, and he was already very familiar with how the Haihan people developed and built port-based colonies. Schneider said he was just pretending to be a newbie, but he was not wronged.
Li Nai had no choice but to ask directly: "It's easy to invest money and people in it, but you just exaggerated the scale of port development so much. Can you give us a rough scope first, and how much you need to invest in the early stage to be qualified to be on the table?" Play? It’s better to start doing things that need to be prepared early.”
"The ones who are qualified to be on the table this time...there won't be more than five companies in one province!" Schneider casually mentioned a number that shocked Li Nai, but he immediately continued: "But it doesn't mean that those who are not strong enough cannot participate. Come in and invest in a group! ”
"Establish an investment company?" Li Nai has been following the Haihan people for several years, and naturally knows the operating methods that Schneider and others like to use the most.
"That's right." Schneider nodded and said: "This port on Taiwan Island is different from other places. Since the executive committee has decided to open a port and build a port there, it is safe to do something about it. Because of the large scale of the local port, future management convenience must be considered from the planning stage. It will be much easier for us to gather small and medium-sized businessmen together and manage them under one sign.”
Organizing Ming businessmen in the form of joint-stock companies to invest in new areas and new projects under Haihan's rule is nothing new. When Victory Port was first developed, Ming businessmen participated in the large-scale investor "Qiong Lianfa" , investing money and people to participate in the development of Victory Port. As for the investment effect, we can only say that whoever uses it will know. Just look at the current situation of the more than ten shareholders of "Qiong Lianfa". Afterwards, Haihan organized similar investments in Danzhou, Haikou City, Annan, Hong Kong Island and other places, and those who spent the most money were the "Qiong Lianfa" investors who were the first to taste the benefits. However, this model will still expose some institutional flaws over time. For example, when new investment projects appear, they will often be taken over by wealthy merchants like "Qiong Lianfa", while new investment projects that were originally interested in them will be completely covered by them. It was difficult for investors to squeeze out a position, and in the end they had to give up such in-depth cooperation with Haihan. So much so that in some recent investment projects, Haihan had to clearly limit the shareholding of commercial giants like "Qiong Lianfa", and at the same time organized small and medium-sized businessmen to form a group to establish new investment companies, in order to be able to Let more businesses participate in Haihan's projects.
Commercial organizations like "Qiong Lianfa" mainly invest in large plantations with stable income and long payback period, while infrastructure facilities such as exclusive docks are basically invested by each businessman himself. The reason for this is also very simple. Some merchants do not have their own shipping companies, and their business is not mainly shipping. The benefits from investing in terminal infrastructure are relatively small. And large merchants like the Li family, whose business has been involved in all aspects, can have their own exclusive terminals at each port, which will undoubtedly bring great convenience to their own business's transportation and trade.
However, the cost of building a wharf is extremely high. Especially to reach the level required by Haihan Port Management, it is necessary to use a large amount of cement produced by Haihan and to assemble various large-scale cargo lifting equipment produced by Haihan. , as well as laying rapid transfer rails, etc. Not every business can afford the cost of the entire infrastructure project. If businesses are measured individually, Schneider's statement is indeed not an exaggeration. There are not many businesses that can bear the cost of building docks on their own.
How the Haihan people change the rules of the game is secondary. Li Nai only needs to make sure that he can continue to play well. His purpose of rushing from Guangzhou to Sanya this time was to make sure that he would not be left aside and unable to participate in Haihan's next round of games. Being able to get a definite answer from Schneider, in fact, the specific investment measures and implementation steps are secondary. For the Li family, the question can be simplified to the amount of investment, the level of return and the length of the payback period, but the Haihan people have never been there. The Li family has been mistreated in these aspects, and Li Nai is very relieved about this.
When Li Nai left, Schneider wrote him a note and asked him to take the note to the Ministry of Communications to send a telegram back to Guangzhou. Li Nai took the note to the Ministry of Communications, and then drafted a long message to send out, which cost him more than one hundred yuan in currency notes. The general idea is to ask the family in Guangzhou to quickly find the location needed for the newspaper office, and then start preparing manpower to participate in Haihan's upcoming new colony project. Of course, due to the need for confidentiality, Li Nai did not mention a word in the telegram where Haihan's new colonial project would be located.
After the Guangzhou side received the telegram notification from Li Nai, Li Jifeng probably took over the matter personally. Only three days later, they received a call back saying that the required newspaper venue was ready, just outside the east gate of Guangzhou on the bank of the Pearl River. On the other side, it is only a hundred meters away from the compound of the Haihan Liaison Office in Guangdong. The Li family moved so fast that Ning Qi even wondered if they had quietly bought all the land and properties around the Guangdong Office. After Li Nai received a reply from Guangzhou, he left Sanya with confidence and returned north by boat.
On December 11, a small fleet of eleven ships left Sanya Port and headed north. Except for the red and blue zigzag Haihan flag hanging on the mast, this fleet looks the same as the merchant fleet plying the sea, but this fleet carries about 700 immigrants who are about to settle on Taiwan Island. They will become the first batch of naturalized Haihan residents to permanently reside in the local area. In addition to carrying this group of immigrants, the ballast cargo on the ship is full of various supplies to enable this group of immigrants to survive the difficult period at the beginning of landing.
Three days after this fleet set off, another fleet also sailed from the Causeway Bay Pier on Hong Kong Island, also destined for Tainan. Part of the passengers in this fleet are a group of new immigrants recently recruited by Guangzhou, about 300 people. The other part is a construction team secretly organized by the Li family, with a total of more than 80 people. Their task is to The local area assisted in the construction of private houses, docks, and other infrastructure facilities.
On December 16, a fleet consisting of five combat ships and two comprehensive supply ships sailed out of Magong Port in Penghu and headed southeast in the name of maritime training. The target of this fleet is the same as the first two fleets, which is the Kaohsiung Port in Tainan. Its mission is to provide armed escorts for the immigrant camps in the early stages of immigrants' arrival there, and is also responsible for maintaining local security.
On the 17th and 18th, two fleets from Hainan and Guangdong also arrived in the predetermined waters one after another. Under the guidance of the warships that arrived earlier, they slowly sailed into the harbor of Kaohsiung Port. The last time the Haihan Militia came here to survey, the main landing site had been selected, which was located on the coast near the mouth of the Love River in Kaohsiung. The militia troops who arrived here in advance have landed ashore and deployed multiple groups of patrol personnel within a radius of about one kilometer outside to ensure that they will not suffer sudden attacks from the outside world. Although conditions had been negotiated with the local indigenous residents when I came here last time, no one can guarantee whether these indigenous people will abide by the agreement reached before. The necessary deployment of troops is also to nip problems in the bud.
In the first few days after landing, the immigrants lived in large marching tents that could accommodate twenty people. Their tasks at this stage were to level the base, dig drainage ditches, water storage tanks, and build toilets and other infrastructure. It was not until the fourth day that the immigrants, under the command of craftsmen, transported the prefabricated wooden boards and other components unloaded from the ship to the predetermined location and began to assemble and build houses. This kind of prefabricated house mainly follows the previous ideas, taking the boat-shaped house of the Li ethnic group as a reference in appearance, but has made more structural improvements, using a large number of prefabricated parts to simplify the process of building the house. Skilled craftsmen direct seven or eight workers, and it only takes a day or two to build a new boat-shaped house that can accommodate eight to ten people.
(End of chapter)