Chapter 1027 Hope Oilfield (1)
It was already late April when the fleet led by Bai Kesi arrived in Miaoli. According to the information Haihan knew, the rainy season on Taiwan Island should be between April and May. However, this climate data comes from several No one knows how skewed statistics will be after a century. It is currently difficult to make an accurate prediction to what extent the navigation capacity of Houlong River will be affected after the short rainy season ends. Therefore, we must make use of this period of time when the water flow of Longxi can ensure the navigation of barges until they leave the Shankeng Oilfield, and seize the time to organize transportation capacity to transport some large materials into the mountainous area.
Under the constraints of such objective conditions, plans such as the extermination of indigenous tribes must be slowed down. After all, the huge amount of materials that need to be transported into the mountains and the navigation of Houlong River that may be interrupted at any time are the urgent problems that need to be solved at present. The main contradiction is that the indigenous tribes are currently only hidden dangers, and the urgency of starting a war is not that high. And because it was unfamiliar with the local geographical conditions, the military's plans in advance used armed escort as the main means, and it was not fully prepared for an active attack.
Once the direction of action is determined, everything can be implemented step by step according to the plan. Morgan had already planned the general steps of action before, and everyone discussed and determined the division of labor during dinner, rested one night, and started to work tomorrow.
Although Miaoli is a relatively unfamiliar place, and only two on-site investigations were conducted beforehand, Haihan has become very familiar with carrying out surprise colonial resettlement in a short period of time in the past few years, and he has concluded that A set of relatively efficient action plans has been developed, and only certain adjustments need to be made according to the specific target environment.
The next day, it was just dawning, and the coastal campsites were already busy. The cooking team started preparing breakfast for the more than a thousand people at three o'clock to ensure that they could start work as early as possible. Although the breakfast was just rice porridge and pickles, the cook added a lot of fresh seafood to the porridge. These cheap fish, shrimps and kelp immediately greatly improved the quality of the breakfast. Many people smelled this seafood in their sleep. Wake up automatically after the aroma of porridge.
The food for Bai Kesi and others is naturally better. There are also fresh meat buns and white flour steamed buns to choose from, as well as eggs and milk that only the chiefs can enjoy. Travelers have always enjoyed relatively good treatment in terms of life. Even in a remote place like Miaoli, there will not be a big gap. They came to this era just to enjoy the treatment of superiors, and they would not deliberately engage in any tricks to mingle with their subordinates. Moreover, the East Asian civilizations of this era were still in feudal dynasties where superiority and inferiority were clearly distinguished. Differential treatment was also to maintain the majesty of the ruling class. One of the necessary means.
However, everyone had tasks to do today, and there were a lot of things waiting to be done, so they were not in the mood to enjoy breakfast slowly. After eating it in a few seconds, Bai Kesi called everyone to start work.
The fleet led by Bai Kesi arrived here yesterday and still had a lot of supplies that had not had time to be unloaded on the shore. On the other side, the unloaded goods had already begun to be loaded onto flat-bottomed barges that were navigable on inland rivers. However, most of the flat-bottomed barges have already been loaded with cargo and arranged in formation when they set off from Penghu. They can be directly hooked up to the back of the tugboat when they first go from the coastal camp along Houlong River into the mountains.
Due to the need to seize time during the rainy season, Baikes decided to invest all six steam tugs. Each tugboat can tow four fully loaded barges and transport dozens of tons of materials upstream at a time. Considering that two strongholds will be built on the way, two of the six fleets will be responsible for transporting supplies and personnel to these two locations respectively, while the remaining four fleets will focus on transporting supplies to the Chusangkeng Oilfield area. In terms of military defense, Yu Yao and Morgan will be stationed at the Coast Camp and the Chushuangkeng Camp respectively, while the two armed strongholds in the middle will each deploy a platoon of troops and hand them over to the command of lower-level officers.
Bai Kesi, Liu Shanxia, Tian Yeyou and Morgan were all heading to the Chushuangkeng area, and one of them happened to be in charge of commanding a fleet. After eight o'clock in the morning, several people boarded the boat separately and directed the fleet to set off. Each fleet sailed out from the coastal camp, with a distance of more than half a mile from end to end. The scene looked spectacular. It should be regarded as the largest fleet in the history of Houlong River.
Because a large number of armed personnel must be sent to various strongholds along the way while transporting supplies, almost a dozen soldiers with live ammunition are sitting on the cargo of each barge. One fleet can almost carry a platoon of troops. Considering safety issues, a large number of migrant workers basically have to wait until the second trip to board the ship.
The fleet arrived at the first stronghold on the way more than two hours after setting off. The river beach here was still deserted. It seemed that Haihan's plan to set up a stronghold here would not encounter any resistance. After the fleet unloads its cargo, it will return to the coastal camp. If everything goes well, it should be possible to transport personnel and supplies here again today. At that time, a number of civilian workers and logistics personnel equal to the garrison will be stationed here, and it will take about two to three days to build a prototype of a civil-structure armed stronghold here.
After the initial cleanup of the surrounding areas in the future, more immigrants will soon move in and gradually control this area through colonization, and the armed strongholds built in the early days will serve as the administrative center here. By then, the towns formed by the two river bends in the south and north will also provide food and part of the labor force for the oil fields in the adjacent mountainous areas.
Due to time and safety reasons, the fleet did not stop for meals midway. Everyone had lunch on board with dry food, even the travelers. At around two o'clock in the afternoon, the fleet successfully arrived at the location of the second river bend stronghold. A fleet of ships slowly approached the shore, and the only thing left to do was to unload the supplies on the ship to the shore as quickly as possible, and then start building a stronghold. If the soldiers acted quickly enough, the fleet would have time to return to the coastal camp before dark.
After passing this river bend, the terrain began to gradually rise, and the speed of the barge fleet carrying heavy materials also slowed down significantly. After entering the mountainous area, the only loud noises made by the steam engines of a few tugboats were heard throughout the forest, making any attempt to hide their tracks come to naught. Although it was only a few miles away from Chulunkeng, it still took more than two hours to reach the destination.
"This is our oil field!" Bai Kesi raised his hands in the air, unable to hide his excitement: "Our era of internal combustion engines will start from this place!"
"Old Bai, don't be too excited. We haven't determined where the oil is buried in the ground yet, and we haven't even figured out the horoscope yet!" Tian Yeyou poured cold water on him without hesitation from the standpoint of an expert.
Bai Kesi chuckled and didn't take it seriously. In fact, the rough location of the oil field has already been determined based on the mining locations known to later generations. However, the mountain geography has inevitably changed over the past few hundred years, so field exploration is still needed to confirm it with the data. And he is not the only one who is anxious about this matter. Most people in the executive committee are full of expectations for this. Even the name of the oil field has been decided early. It is called Hope Oil Field to represent the cross-country public. The anticipation of the coming era of the internal combustion engine.
Of course, the wish is beautiful, but it is not so easy to realize it. Haihan had already spent hundreds of thousands of yuan on the early stage of material preparation and personnel mobilization alone, and the subsequent stationing and construction expenses in the Miaoli area were by no means a small amount. Even if oil can be successfully mined and refined in the future, the cost will be astonishingly high. At least in the foreseeable future, high-end products such as gas turbines will not be widely promoted and used in Haihan Industrial System. But even if this is a low-cost-effective project that seems to be thankless at this stage, the traversers will still spare no effort to promote its implementation. Everyone agrees that the leading advantages in the field of industrial science and technology are worth investing money to develop, not to mention that this advantage has been so great that it is two centuries ahead of the earth's civilization at the same time. Moreover, judging from the history of civilization development, the rise of industrial civilization will inevitably be accompanied by the competition for energy production areas. The sooner Haihan masters the development and utilization technology of oil, the farther away it will be from its contemporary competitors.
In addition to food and daily necessities, the dozen or so shipments of supplies arriving at the Hope Oil Field were almost all drilling equipment, building materials and various prefabricated components used to build prefabricated houses. The soldiers were divided into two teams, one team was responsible for unloading the goods on the river bank, and the other team began to clear the open space on the river bank as the foundation for building a camp later.
The last time Morgan came here for a field trip, he had already roughly selected a flat area about 500 meters long and 200 meters wide on the south bank of Houlong River as the camp site. After Liu Shanxia got off the ship, he was very positive about the area chosen by Morgan. The terrain here is relatively flat. If you go up the slope, the amount of work will be doubled to move the building materials and level the foundation.
Before Haihan arrived, this area was an undeveloped virgin forest. Although the trees were not as dense as the tropical rainforest, it still took a lot of effort to clear this area. In terms of project volume, the manpower required to invest in this place is much greater than the three strongholds outside the mountain. Those places are all flood plains on the coast, basically just low shrubs, which are relatively easy to clean up.
"Mr. Bai, you should call in your subordinate Cai Hongzhan for this job. This logging is his specialty." Liu Shanxia joked with Bai Kesi while directing the work on site.
Cai Hongzhan was an employee of Bai Kesi before the time travel, and his specialty was carpentry. After the time travel group landed in Yulin Bay, the leader of the logging team was Cai Hongzhan. Until now, he is still in charge of timber-related matters. All the forest farm directors on Hainan Island are under his command. In the field of logging, he must be better than Liu Shanxia in terms of professionalism.
Baix looked at the soldiers using axes to cut down the thick trees, and felt that the pre-planning was somewhat wrong. In a deserted ravine like this, a professional logging team may be more useful than an armed force.
In the midst of the busy work, the sky gradually darkened before I knew it, and the cleared area was only a few hundred square meters. It was definitely too late to build a wooden house. I could only put up the marching tent first and deal with the first night. .
In addition to the basic defense line, Morgan also set up five groups of hidden sentries in an area about two hundred meters outside the camp as a temporary defense method. Morgan knew very well that there was an indigenous tribe across a ridge to the east, but he was not too worried about the indigenous people trying to camp at night. This kind of action that required strict maintenance of combat discipline was not something that non-professional civilian militiamen could do. Turned.
Taking advantage of the opportunity to have dinner together, several leaders also gathered together to discuss the current progress of camp construction.
"Three-quarters of the supplies we have transported have been unloaded so far. It will take about one to two hours to unload tomorrow morning. However, the fleet that has unloaded the goods has already returned downstream, and it is expected that it will be unloaded tonight on the second Rest for one night at the second base. If possible, we will return to the coastal camp at noon tomorrow, so the second trip should be made the day after tomorrow." Morgan, who is responsible for supervising the unloading, took the lead in reporting the progress of his work.
Liu Shanxia shrugged and said: "Everyone must have seen the situation here. The progress of clearing the ground will be slower than expected. There is nothing we can do about it. The only logging tools we have on hand are saws and axes. I made a rough estimate. At this time, it will take about five hundred trees to clear this area. Even if we don't sleep, it will take about five days at the current speed. This is already the ideal result."
"Tomorrow I will designate an area. You cut down the trees there first. I will direct the drilling rig to be set up and drilling can begin." Tian Yeyou's progress is undoubtedly the fastest among these people. He seems to have found the He found the location of the oil field and looked calm and composed.
"How sure are you?" Baikes immediately asked after hearing this.
"It's hard to say, 60% to 70%. I think we have found the right place, but we still have to wait until the drill is drilled down before taking a look." Tian Yeyou's attitude was still more cautious and he did not talk too much. But to Bai Kesi's ears, it was tantamount to drilling oil out of the ground.
"Then tomorrow the logging team will give priority to ensuring the needs of the exploration team and clear out the mining area first." Baikes made a prompt decision and decided to invest limited resources in oil field drilling first. It is not that the internal combustion engine has been built and is waiting for this. It starts with oil, but if the oil can be drilled out smoothly, everyone will feel more relaxed. Moreover, the goal that the Executive Committee hopes to achieve at this stage is not how many thousands of barrels of crude oil the oil field can produce per year. It only needs to confirm that oil can be drilled from this place. After all, in order to turn oil into fuel, a refinery must first be built. Let’s talk after you get up.
(End of chapter)