Chapter 1280 Yinggehai County
Yinggehai County is one of the few areas on the island that is governed by naturalized officials. However, the man in charge here is not a novice. He was one of the first local officials of the Ming Dynasty to join Haihan, Yacheng Shuizhai. Luo Shengdong, a naval officer.
Luo Shengdong gained a lot of benefits after joining Haihan. Not only was he successfully promoted from a low-level officer to a general, but he also used his authority to use naval warships as a means of transportation to traffic goods to the Ming Dynasty's ruling area at that time. The private salt produced in Haihan has made a fortune after several years of hard work. Later, Luo Shengdong saw that Haihan was becoming more and more powerful in Hainan Island, and the salt business had gradually changed from underground smuggling to open operations. The space for private salt dealers to move was getting smaller and smaller, and he did not want to hang around with a useless general. title, he simply gave up his official position in the Ming Dynasty, bought a house in Sanya and became a naturalized citizen, and An An felt at ease as a Han Chinese.
Now that he has given up his identity as a Mingren and has become a Haihan, Luo Shengdong's issues have naturally shifted from making a fortune to future development. This is not only his personal destiny, but also related to the future prospects of his family. For Luo Shengdong, money will definitely be inexhaustible in this life, and the next generation will basically be able to have enough food and clothing. He has invested in some plantations in Hainan Island and various colonies in the South China Sea, and has gradually entered a period of stable income. The annual profits are not much worse than the previous smuggled salt, which is enough to protect his family's future living needs.
But this alone is not enough. Luo Shengdong has tasted the sweetness of holding power, and naturally he is not willing to be a landlord waiting to die for the rest of his life. Moreover, the national power of the Haihan Kingdom is booming. If he cannot give his descendants a better background, So no matter how rich the Luo family is, they are still ordinary people. Luo Shengdong believes that this is the best plan to protect the descendants of the family and find a way to become an official in Haihan.
Luo Shengdong believed that he got along relatively well with the senior officials of Haihan, so he came forward to seek help from the executive committee, hoping to serve the country in a different way. The executive committee wanted to use him to serve Haihan in the past few years. He also did a lot of things before and after the committee, and he even participated in many shady things. He had both credit and hard work, so he was given such an opportunity. Anyway, Haihan had a long history of appointing surrendered officials from the Ming Dynasty and other countries, and Luo Shengdong was no different.
Of course, Luo Shengdong did not take office immediately after the executive committee nodded. Instead, he participated in government affairs training for a period of time, and later interned in Sanya, Danzhou and Haikou for about a month before being appointed. Director of the Management Committee of Yinggehai County.
However, what played a key role was that Luo Shengdong worshiped the right Bodhisattva and burned the right incense. A few years ago, he forcibly worshiped Anxi, who was in charge of the salt industry at the Haihan Industrial Department, as his disciple for his private salt business. He was several years older than Anxi, but from then on he treated Anxi as a master and apprentice. When Luo Shengdong proposed to the executive committee for job transfer, Anxi also spoke up for him, so that the errands of Yinggehai County were handed over to Luo Shengdong.
Luo Shengdong has famous teachers, and he has been in this industry for several years. He knows all the ins and outs. If he is appointed as the local magistrate of the salt production area, he is professionally qualified. Although he was a military attache before, after receiving government affairs training from Haihan, he was capable enough to manage a county. Although there are many wealthy salt merchants coming and going here, Luo Shengdong himself is a wealthy man and will not be easily bribed with money. In addition, he also knows that Haihan has an independent operation system for internal supervision. This official position is not an iron job, so since taking office for more than a year, he has managed the place in an orderly manner and has not made any obvious mistakes.
Sanya sent inspection teams to inspect the government and people's conditions in various counties. Luo Shengdong had been notified of this in advance, but he only learned the news after Yu Xiaobao and others arrived and settled in Yinggehai. Luo Shengdong's attitude was still very upright. He came to the county guest house early in the morning and took the initiative to meet with Yu Xiaobao. After everyone had breakfast together, Luo Shengdong took them to visit the local salt farm production.
"Do you still need to take a ride?" Liu Shang couldn't help but wonder when he saw several carriages with awnings parked outside the guest house. Isn't this place a little too rich? The salt farm is clearly within sight, but several carriages are sent to pull people there.
However, Luo Shengdong explained the reason next: "The salt field in the county is too large, and it is too tiring to rely on two legs. You can take a bus to inspect, and your body can relax a little."
Luo Shengdong's move is really not just about showing off his wealth or flattering. The Yinggehai Salt Field is quite large, with a span of about ten miles in the east-west and north-south directions. Walking on two legs would indeed be tiring. Moreover, most of the people who come here to visit are salt merchants. These big and well-off businessmen naturally want to take a bus to visit. Now Xiaobao and his party are only treated equally.
After the carriage drove closer, Liu Shang discovered that the salt field here was not a vast white field as it looked from a distance, but was composed of countless rectangular salt fields. Some salt fields have basically completed the process of drying salt, and the white sea salt covers the salt fields like white snow. Some saltworks workers are using wooden shovels to shovel the dried salt together. From a distance, the piles of salt look like winter snow.
It's a pity that the car Liu Shang was riding in was not equipped with a dedicated commentator, and Luo Shengdong was accompanying Yu Xiaobao and Zhang Qianzhi in the car in front. Liu Shang wanted to understand the scale and production of local salt fields. Ability, probably can only be aggrieved first.
However, even though Liu Shang was not that familiar with the production process of the salt farm, he quickly spotted a special item he recognized in his field of vision - a steam engine. What is different from steam engines elsewhere is that it is mainly used to pump water here, pumping the saturated salt liquid in the brine pool into the crystallization tank, which is much more efficient than the original manual water pumping. Liu Shang looked at the churning steam engine and thought that the Haihan people really used this steam engine in various situations, even the salt field. The water pumping efficiency of this steam engine is better than ten times the manpower. How dare the Haihan people use it? Boasting that this is the best salt field in the world is indeed justified.
In fact, Haihan began to trial steam engine lifting and irrigation equipment to assist production a few years ago at the Salt Farm Commune outside Shengli Port. After accumulating a lot of experience in use, it was gradually extended to other salt production areas including the Yinggehai Salt Farm. However, we also encountered a big problem in the promotion of Yinggehai, that is, the local fresh water resources are relatively scarce, especially near the salt fields. There is no fresh water source at all, and we can only rely on digging wells to mine groundwater. In order to meet the working needs of the steam engine, a lot of extra manpower and material resources were spent.
However, the production efficiency improvement brought by the use of steam engines is very significant, and the increased benefits quickly make up for these expenses. Currently, more than ten steam pumps are put into use in various salt fields in Yinggehai. However, this is not enough for the production scale of Yinggehai. Luo Shengdong also hopes to take advantage of the opportunity of an inspection team from Sanya to inspect the work to demonstrate the local production needs so that the Ministry of Industry can make arrangements as soon as possible. Several sets of steam engine lifting and irrigation equipment were produced and delivered to Yinggehai Salt Farm for use. Similar to other places, when more and more people became aware of the productivity changes brought about by steam-powered machinery, early promotion gradually turned into active requirements of users, and Haihan's industrial manufacturing capabilities were far from sufficient. To solve the demand for steam engines, many places can only submit orders to the Ministry of Industry first, and then the Executive Committee and the Ministry of Industry jointly decide which regions and industries to solve the needs first.
In the current environment where Haihan is constantly expanding its actual control area, the military is undoubtedly the first purpose that needs to be taken care of. The Haihan Sea Territory spans more than ten thousand miles from north to south. Steam warships have become an indispensable combat weapon for the navy. Haihan The maritime military superiority maintained over other countries largely relies on the performance improvement brought by steam power to warships. At least half of the steam engine production capacity of the Ministry of Industry must be allocated to military projects, and the remaining part can be divided among other civilian projects. The competition can even be described as fierce.
Although Luo Shengdong has some friendship with the senior officials of Haihan, he has been in the officialdom for so many years and understands that it is not wise to use personal relationships to resolve official matters, so even though the Yinggehai Salt Farm has a huge demand for steam equipment , he still could only try to make requests to the superiors through formal channels. In Luo Shengdong's eyes, the inspection team could actually be regarded as a shortcut worth trying.
As long as Yu Xiaobao and others can be persuaded to come forward and apply to the executive committee, the effect may be much better than the result of Luo Shengdong's own report. He knew very well that Yu Xiaobao's popularity in Haihan and his friendship with high-level figures were not comparable to his own, so he also made certain preparations for the arrival of Xiaobao and others. Apart from anything else, the inspection team was all assigned single rooms when they checked into the guest house. This was the result of Luo Shengdong's advance greeting.
Of course, Luo Shengdong's methods don't stop there. Based on his experience in officialdom, he believes that young and successful officials like Yu Xiaobao won't care too much about the verbal praise from others, because he should not look down on such people at all. Eyes, as for disguised bribery, it is absolutely not advisable. Once the other party thinks that you have some bad intentions, go back and make a small report to the leaders, and you will not be able to clean yourself by jumping into the South China Sea.
Luo Shengdong believes that the key to pleasing the other party is to make the other party feel happy during their local business trip. In addition to providing Yu Xiaobao and others with relatively comfortable food, accommodation and transportation conditions, he also specially summoned the management of various local departments in advance The personnel have made preparations, the production unit has emphasized labor discipline, and the residential and commercial areas have been cleaned up. They have also prepared government information to ensure that the inspection team cannot find too many problems in the local area.
Both parties are naturalized cadres, and their official positions are about the same. They have known each other eight years ago, but there is no overlap at work and they rarely interact with each other. But it has to be said that Luo Shengdong's rough and detailed arrangements are indeed very suitable for Xiaobao. He only hopes to complete his work smoothly in Yinggehai County and does not need anything from the other party. Benefits or showing a flattering attitude, as long as you can cooperate well and explain the local government affairs situation.
After walking about two miles, the motorcade stopped at a place with many houses. This is not a residence for local people, but a production center that manages the nearby salt fields. The main functions here are to allocate manpower and production tasks, store production tools, and store finished salt.
Liu Shang noticed that the houses here were all built with heavy stones. This was the first time Liu Shang saw this kind of all-stone house after coming to Hainan Island. When he walked in, he could see the outer wall surface of the house. There are tiny pieces of salt attached to it, and you can twist it off with your fingers.
At this time, Luo Shengdong was also introducing to everyone the reason for building this kind of house. It was because the salt-alkali content in the local air was heavy, and other building materials were easily corroded. Only stone could maintain long-term stability. However, as a result, the cost of building houses is naturally much higher than elsewhere. If the salt farm had not had abundant financial resources, it would be difficult to build such expensive stone buildings in large quantities.
Luo Shengdong led everyone into one of the rooms, where several people were bending over their desks and fiddling with some salt on the table in small porcelain dishes. Luo Shengdong said: "The governor of Anxi has set three levels of standards for locally produced salt. Here, the salt that has been made is sampled and tested to see if it meets the standards. If it does not meet the standards, it cannot be sold externally. ”
The so-called three-level standards are actually more for commercial sales considerations. The quality of salt is used as a reference standard for pricing to achieve the purpose of covering all price levels. Specifically, it is divided into three grades: coarse salt, refined salt and special salt.
Coarse salt is basically natural salt after evaporating salt water and crystallizing the salt. The production process is the simplest, the cost is the lowest, and the price is naturally the cheapest. It is a weapon used by Haihan to seize the low-end market. The production process of refined salt is much more complicated. It requires filtering coarse salt, adding other solutions to form a precipitate, removing various impurities, and then evaporating the water. After a series of physical and chemical purification processes, the salt is obtained. Relatively pure refined salt. This process is much more complicated, and the price on the market will naturally increase exponentially.
As for the more high-end special salt, it mainly relies on commercial packaging to sell the concept. On the basis of refined salt, some flavoring ingredients are added, coupled with exquisite packaging and specially formulated brand promotion strategies, the sales targets are also Mainly the upper class of society who are not short of money, the price is more than ten times higher than that of coarse salt. Although the output is not high, the profit is considerable.
(End of chapter)