Chapter 1278 Sugarcane Industry
Most of the people in power in the counties on Hainan Island are time travellers. Naturally, Yu Xiaobao does not dare to act like a special envoy in front of these people. Therefore, this inspection mainly requires the cooperation of the local authorities. However, Yu Xiaobao himself joined Haihan a long time ago, and he knows most of the time-travelers, and they have lived together for so many years. Many people no longer regard him as an aboriginal at all. This is also the reason why the Executive Committee One of the reasons why a young official like him was appointed to take on this important task.
Zhang Guang knew very well how much attention Yu Xiaobao and Zhang Qianzhi, two young people, received from the Executive Committee. Of course, he would not embarrass them. He proactively provided cooperation and ordered people to take out all the government affairs records from last year to this year. Let them look through it.
The government record of Yacheng County is undoubtedly quite good. It can be said that the government is well-connected and the people are well-connected. It is close to Sanya and was the first city to be brought under the rule of Haihan. The degree of social transformation is also relatively complete. Earlier, the local landowners and official families either moved back to the mainland, or completely surrendered to Haihan and gave up their identity as Mingren. As for the few people who disobeyed Haihan's rule, the grass on their graves was already two meters high. .
Today, only about 20% of the population in Yacheng County is native-born. The vast majority of the population are immigrants who have moved in over the years since Haihan took over. These new immigrants do not have deep-rooted clan ties in the local area, and it is much easier for the government to manage them. Moreover, most of them did not have much property when they came here, and they have to rely on the government for a long period of time. They rely on jobs and subsidies to survive, and their dependence on the state is much greater than that of traditional agricultural societies that are self-sufficient.
Almost all of these immigrants were rescued by Haihan in distress, and their loyalty to the new regime was also quite high. In addition, there were not as many foreigners here as there were in Sanya, and the social atmosphere was simpler than in Sanya. In Zhang Guang's early years, Working in the Cliff Office, I am familiar with the local situation, so I am very comfortable in managing local government affairs. Various government orders such as building bridges and paving roads, guiding agricultural production, and carrying out foreign trade activities are being implemented in an orderly manner. Although the results are not particularly outstanding, they are at least satisfactory, and there is not much to criticize.
Yu Xiaobao communicated with Zhang Guang while checking government affairs records. But the others who had nothing to do were a bit bored. They could only wait nearby and couldn't make any noise. Fortunately, this cutscene didn't last too long and ended in less than an hour.
Seeing that there was still some time before noon, Zhang Guang arranged for Yu Xiaobao and others to visit the operation of a local sugar cane farm. Yu Xiaobao saw Zhang Guang pretending to lead the way in person, so he quickly jumped in front and said: "If the journey is far, the chief can just send someone to lead the way. There is no need to go there in person."
Zhang Guang waved his hand and said: "It's not far, not far. There are thousands of acres of sugar cane fields just outside the east gate. The processing plant is also outside the east gate. It only takes a few minutes to walk there."
When Liu Shang heard the words "processing plant", he immediately came out of his distracted state. He remembered that on the way to Yacheng just now, Yu Xiaobao had mentioned that Haihan had also used steam in sugar cane processing. Mechanical device. Liu Shang was not interested in sugar cane, but he wanted to see with his own eyes how the steam engine was used to squeeze sugar cane juice.
As the group walked out of the east gate, they saw a large field of sugar cane in front of them. Hundreds of laborers were loading the harvested sugar cane into trucks and transporting it away. The large bundles of sugar cane were piled like hills on the truck and were pulled by oxen. Move slowly on the road.
Zhang Guang said: "In previous years, the harvest season was usually concentrated in May, but in the past two years, we have started to implement year-round planting rotation, so basically there will be fresh sugar cane produced throughout the year. I am going to wait until this winter is not so busy. When the time came, we organized manpower to build a freight track here to improve the transportation efficiency between the sugarcane growing areas and the processing plants.”
The road from the sugarcane planting area to the processing plant is actually very short, so the cost of road construction will not be too high. The track construction plan required for short-distance hauling has accumulated a lot of experience through practice in the mining process in the past few years. , it can be said that the entire set of operations from road construction to later equipment debugging and maintenance has been very mature, and one winter is enough to complete this kind of infrastructure project, which is not too large.
As he walked, Zhang Guang gave everyone a general introduction to the local sugar cane production situation. The sugar cane grown in Yacheng County is mainly sugar cane, which means it has a high sugar content and is mainly used as raw material for sugar production. Different from the fruit cane specially designed for consumption, the sugar cane skin has thick hard fiber and a poor taste, so it is generally not eaten as a fruit. The sugarcane planting area in Yacheng County has reached more than 14,000 acres, and the planting scale is still expanding at a rate of 20% every year. However, even so, the current sugarcane output in Yacheng is far from satisfying the needs of Hainan. Due to the demand for Han winemaking and sugar refining, many sugarcane planting areas have been newly developed in the northern part of Hainan Island in recent years. However, this area started earlier, and the planting varieties and supporting industries are more mature. It can be regarded as the largest sugar cane planting area under the current Hainan rule. The main sugarcane producing area.
The sugarcane processing plant is located on the bank of the Ningyuan River. Zhang Guang said that this processing plant first used water-driven machinery, and the operating cost was very low. However, the flow of the Ningyuan River is not so stable. Between the dry season and the wet season It is also very troublesome to constantly adjust these hydraulic machines. After steam engines began to be promoted, Zhang Guang returned to Sanya to pray to gods and worship Buddhas. Finally, he finally obtained a quota for two steam-powered presses from the executive committee and assembled them in this processing plant.
With the blessing of steam engines, the production capacity of the processing plant has naturally increased a lot. Currently, the maximum daily processing capacity here is about 20,000 kilograms of sugar cane, and the juice extraction rate is far better than the previous human, animal and hydraulic means. Of course, because of the use of steam engines, the processing plant also specially built conspicuous chimneys. From a distance from the Yacheng city wall, you can see whether the work there is in progress.
Before entering the factory, Liu Shang heard the familiar sound of the steam engine running. When he walked in, he saw several shirtless men standing on a shelf, feeding sugar cane one by one into a thigh-thick machine. In the iron cylinder, the other end of the cylinder is connected to the black juicer. After the sugar cane enters, the juice flows into a large wooden barrel from the outlet below the juicer. Every time a barrel is full, someone will replace it. Put in a new empty bucket. The bagasse is spit out from the other side of the juicer and falls into an iron baggage box for storage. These bagasses are not useless. After simple processing, they can be used to make paper and can also be used for composting.
The subsequent processing of sugarcane juice did not involve a steam engine, and Liu Shang had no interest in finding out how the Haihan people brewed their wine. He was just curious about the steam engine, and went around checking its mechanical structure, trying to figure out how to make it. Understand how the coal-fired water-burning boiler creates so much energy and how it is transferred to the juicer to function. Liu Shang believed that if he could fully understand the principle of this steam engine and then return to the Ming Dynasty to imitate it, wouldn't it be a great achievement?
Although Liu Shang is smarter than ordinary people, if no one explains the secrets of this new thing in detail to him, it is impossible to replicate such high-tech technology by naked eye observation. After he came to Haihan, he had already closely observed the train, the motor boat and the steam power device of the juicer. Apart from sighing that the Haihan people were so clever in building such a machine, the harvest was not too great. Even if he already knew the operating principle of the steam engine from others, there was still a huge gap between turning the principle into a practical and usable machine.
Haihan's capabilities in industrial manufacturing are not comparable to those of Ming Dynasty. If this kind of machinery is transported back to Daming for dismantling, and all the skilled craftsmen from all over the world are gathered together for research, it will take one or two years, and it will definitely be possible to replicate seven or eight points of the prototype, but the manufacturing cost is not easy to calculate, let alone something like a prototype. Haihan has also formed large-scale production and applied it to the grassroots level of social production. It was indeed difficult for Liu Shang to do it on his own. He looked around for a long time, wishing he could take apart all the iron casings on the outside of the juicer to take a closer look at the structure inside. But this is obviously impossible. Liu Shang secretly planned in his heart that when he returns to Sanya in the future, if he has the opportunity, he will go to the municipal library to check whether there are drawings related to steam engines that he can read. If such a sharp weapon were only mastered by Haihan, it would only take a few years, and Ming might not even have a chance to make a comeback.
When Liu Shang was distracted, he heard someone next to him ask: "Why don't you follow the team? It seems that you are particularly interested in this steam engine?"
The hair on Liu Shang's back suddenly stood up, because he could tell that the voice was the most feared person in the team, Zhang Qianzhi, who worked in the Security Department. Liu Shang was consciously tested by Zhang Qianzhi yesterday on the ship. His fear of this person increased greatly. Since then, he has been careful not to come into contact with him alone. Unexpectedly, he fell in love with him in this processing factory and was noticed by him again. arrive. Liu Shang couldn't help but regret, why he had to rush to study the steam engine at this moment. If the other party saw the flaws because of this, it would be really not worth it.
However, Liu Shang's professional quality is pretty good. Although his heart was already fried, his reaction was quite calm. He turned to Zhang Qianzhi and said, "I just feel that the design of this juicer is exquisite and ingenious, and I am instantly addicted to it." Going in made Director Zhang laugh.”
Zhang Qianzhi said with a smile: "Since Mr. Liu likes studying steam engines so much, I will arrange for you to learn this major after returning to Sanya."
Liu Shang said in astonishment: "This... this skill can still be taught publicly?"
"Of course!" Zhang Qianzhi said: "Three or four years are enough to learn all the courses on steam engine principles, design, manufacturing, and maintenance. I just don't know if Mr. Liu has the patience to study for such a long time. ”
Liu Shang almost agreed. If he could really learn a complete set of relevant knowledge in three or four years as Zhang Qianzhi said, then he would think it was worth it. However, he also understood that the reason why he came to Haihan to lurk was not to learn these strange tricks, and even if there was such a task, it would definitely not be left to him to complete. And the most important thing is that he is not sure whether the other party is using this as bait to lure him into taking the bait. At the moment, he can only suppress the thought in his heart, wave his hands repeatedly and say: "The villain has passed the age of 30, how can he still learn from it?" I have to bring in something, Director Zhang joked.”
Zhang Qianzhi is actually not entirely joking. Haihan does offer relevant courses, but the enrollment is extremely strict. Not only does it have many requirements for residence time, family environment, social relations and other conditions, but the most important thing is that he has already received overseas education. Without the common sense of mathematics, physics and other aspects of Chinese education in related basic subjects, it will be difficult to further study and understand these relatively advanced knowledge of mechanical principles. Even if a smart man like Liu Shang were asked to see the parts and assembly diagrams of the steam engine, he still wouldn't be able to understand it.
Zhang Qianzhi did not answer immediately, but his eyes swept around Liu Shang's face, making Liu Shang secretly feel uncomfortable. After a long time, he spoke again: "I once heard the chief say that eagerness to learn, regardless of age. If you are really interested in steam engines, it is not impossible to change careers. Director Yu or I can write you a letter of introduction. , you can transfer the working relationship from the Propaganda Department, you may wish to consider it.”
Liu Shang heard what he said seriously, and felt a little uneasy at the moment. His interest was indeed more inclined to study machinery, but he also knew that the level of information that this kind of craftsmanship could access was very narrow, and it was likely to require lurking for a number of times. You can only learn some useful things every year, but you may not be able to put them to use immediately after returning to the Ming Dynasty. The propaganda department is different. It has access to a lot of first-hand information, and will be more sensitive to Haihan's political trends. It is far easier to collect intelligence than craftsmen.
Thoughts were swirling in Liu Shang's mind, but he had already made a decision after hesitating for a moment. He bowed to Zhang Qianzhi again and said, "Thank you very much, Director Zhang, for your kindness. I am still good at verbal skills. This inter-department transfer is something I think I will do." It’s hard to adapt, so it’s more comfortable to stay in the Propaganda Department.”
Zhang Qianzhi nodded and did not follow the topic any further. He just said lightly "Follow the team" and walked away on his own. Naturally, Liu Shang did not dare to linger any longer in front of the juicer, and quickly followed the large army.
However, after visiting the sugar and wine workshops, Liu Shang was obviously a little absent-minded. The brief conversation with Zhang Qianzhi obviously had a big impact on him, and could even be said to have shaken his originally firm plan. Until the end of the visit, Liu Shang did not have a conversation with anyone and kept silently thinking about his own thoughts.
(End of chapter)