Chapter 1929
After the reception banquet that night, the group followed Qiao Zhiya's arrangements and took a car to settle down at his private estate. Although it is difficult to see the surrounding environment at night, the tranquility here is easily felt. A large number of trees have been planted inside and outside the manor. The gate into the manor is a large courtyard with rockeries, flowing water, pavilions, green plants, cloisters, and stone paths. It is easy for people inside to mistakenly think that they are... In a garden somewhere in the south of the Yangtze River, not near a small county town on an island in the South China Sea.
Li Bo is a person who prefers peace and quiet at heart. This place is obviously more pleasing to him than the relatively noisy environment in the county. At that moment, he half-jokingly joked to Qiao Zhiya: "Since Mr. Qiao has such a good place, what happened just now?" You should also plan your meal here!”
Qiao Zhiya smiled and said: "The environment here is better than the restaurants in the county town, but I have never held banquets here, and the kitchen utensils required are not all available, so it is safer to place this reception banquet in the county town."
Li Pu thought to himself that you are an official of one parent, and you want to temporarily requisition people and kitchen utensils from a local restaurant. But since Qiao Zhiya didn't say anything, of course he was too sensible not to ask further questions.
In fact, the secret behind this is also very simple. The restaurant where Qiao Zhiya hosted the banquet is the newly opened business of his brother-in-law. As the saying goes, the money does not go to outsiders, but he also takes this opportunity to raise the standard of the restaurant - after all, it is Mr. Qiao. The designated restaurant for entertaining foreign dignitaries can still be used in a small place like Changhua.
Qiao Zhiya's personal guard usually maintains its establishment in the name of militia, but the training frequency and equipment level are far beyond that of the militia. An important person was visiting today, so Qiao Zhiya dispatched this team to take charge of the armed guard of his estate. In terms of familiarity with the inside and outside of the manor, his own personal guard is naturally the best choice. He is responsible for controlling the roads leading to the manor and the surrounding areas. The men and horses brought over by Gai Liangcai were assigned to be responsible for close defense around Li Shu's residence, and the task was relatively easy.
Since many furnaces in the Changhua Smelting Area operate around the clock, workers work in two or three shifts. Even in the middle of the night, there are groups of workers entering and exiting the county, so there is no curfew here. , walking around in the middle of the night actually won’t attract attention. However, Captain Xue and others did not know about this situation and did not dare to take action on the night of arrival. It was not until the next day that they inquired about the location of Daling Manor and prepared to touch the place where the Joseon Crown Prince settled.
But they were taking one step at a time, and Haihan's arrangements would not stop and wait for them. While they were still thinking about how to get to the Qiaozhia Manor without attracting attention, Li Bo and his party were already preparing to set off from the manor to go A railway station located east of the county seat.
The reason why he went out so early in the morning was mainly because the trains on this railway only run twice in the morning and one in the evening, and Qiao Zhiya did not intend to adjust the departure time to make it easier for North Koreans to ride. However, Li Pu thought there was nothing wrong with this arrangement. When he was in Sanya, he missed the train to Tiandu because he had other sightseeing schedules in the morning. As a result, he could only take the short trip from Victory Port to Sanya Port. Since The Haihan train runs so early, so just leave early.
The only adjustment Qiao Zhiya made to the morning train for Li Bo and his party was to add a VIP carriage. This carriage is usually parked in a specially built garage at Changhua Station and is only used when important people come here for inspection.
However, this carriage was manufactured several years ago, and its comfort is not as good as the VIP carriage Li Bo rode in Sanya. Fortunately, Li Bo didn't actually care too much about such details. After getting in the car, he focused more on the scenery outside the car window.
Different from the desolate situation along the railway when it was first built a few years ago, now after the local government carried out planned resettlement, people have begun to live along the railway line. This railway runs almost parallel to the bank of the Changhua River to the east, so the water conservancy conditions near the railway can fully meet the needs of agricultural development. However, since most of the local labor force is concentrated in the smelting industry in Changhua and the mines in Shilu, agricultural reclamation along the railway is only sporadic, and there are not large plantations and collective farms like other places.
The scale of this kind of agricultural development is limited, but it can at least meet part of the local food needs. Moreover, with the settlement of people along the railway line, part of the railway maintenance and repair work has gradually been handed over to the people along the line. As long as they undergo short-term training, even people who know nothing about the principles of railway operation can perform the task of inspecting the track once a day and receive corresponding rewards. This greatly reduces the pressure on the transportation department and increases the number of people along the line. livelihood.
Although there are still many practical problems in this operation, it is already a relatively effective way to solve railway maintenance problems at this stage for the Changshilu area where there is always a labor shortage. Moreover, through these part-time maintenance personnel, officials can also promote railway-related knowledge to people along the line and reduce the occurrence of railway accidents.
"I heard that this railway is four times longer than the railway in Sanya. I must have encountered many difficulties during its construction, right?" After the train started to leave the station, Li Bo couldn't wait to ask questions to Qiao Zhiya.
Qiao Zhiya responded: "The biggest difficulty at that time was actually the shortage of labor force. The prince can see that there is actually no population along the railway line, and the labor force in the entire Changhua County at that time was even less than 3,000. To spread this manpower among the eighty The effect on the multi-mile long construction site can be imagined. Later, we thought of many ways to import labor here, and it took a year and a half to open the transportation line from Changhua to Shilu.”
"As for the cost..." Qiao Zhiya shook his head and said: "That actually doesn't matter. We know that as long as this road is built and mining of Shilu Iron Mine begins, the cost will definitely be recovered. The sooner the mine is put into operation, the better we can The sooner you can get benefits.”
Li Bo asked again: "The Shilu Iron Mine is located deep inland. How did your country discover this mineral deposit? Can Mr. Qiao tell you something?"
Of course, Qiao Zhiya couldn't tell him that Haihan's prospecting was all about searching for pictures based on information from another time and space. He immediately boasted that Haihan sent many people to explore for metal deposits across the island and found Shilu. It was because folk rumors heard that copper ore was produced here. The so-called "Shilu" was the name for copper ore, so the official sent people to follow the clues to find it. As a result, a large vein was discovered, but the copper ore was It is a supporting role, but the real protagonist is the iron ore.
This is also the second and largest iron ore deposit that Haihan officials have discovered on the island after the Sanyatian Du Iron Mine. In addition to iron, this place also has copper, gold, sulfur and other mineral resources, which can be described as a natural cornucopia. Li Pu thought that if this was true, then Haihan's fortune was indeed his destiny. Otherwise, without so much steel, how could Haihan easily form a strong army fully equipped with firearms. Little did he know that this group of people had already considered where to obtain steel before choosing Hainan Island. The development of Shilu Iron Mine was originally a step in Haihan's development plan, and it was not an accident. It's luck.
The supplies transported by this train to the Shilu Mining Area included two wagons of food, one wagon of production tools and various building materials, and another wagon containing two steam engines for crushing rocks in the mine, and a train to power the steam engines. Two wagons of coal. Behind these six freight cars are two passenger cars and the VIP car where Qiao Zhiya and others are.
The so-called passenger carriage is far from the conditions of the VIP carriage. Without the windows inlaid with plate glass, it is almost like a tin can. There were only two rows of benches fixed to the walls of the carriage, and the rest of the people could only sit on the floor in the middle of the carriage. The two passenger carriages contained more than 200 and nearly 300 people, most of whom were miners.
Since these miners who live in Changhua have a long round trip, they usually stay at the mine for ten days and a half or even longer to save time and travel expenses. Nowadays, many miners have chosen to simply settle down in the mining area. Although the living conditions are not as good as those in Changhua, work is much more convenient. Moreover, the development of the smelting industry in Changhua has led to serious local air pollution, but Shilu will not have this problem. The smoke and dust generated by the coal-burning steam engines in the mine may not be as much as that of an operating blast furnace in Changhua. .
After listening to Qiao Zhiya introducing the situation of Shilu Mine like a treasure trove, Li Pu could feel that this high-ranking official of Haihan was indeed very familiar with the industry under his control, and he should have paid much attention to it. Haihan State appointed him as a local official here, and he was indeed very particular.
Halfway through the journey, the whistle was heard. After a while, the train Li Bo was riding crossed with the train coming from the opposite direction on the railway track, and the sound was quite alarming.
Qiao Zhiya, however, had long been accustomed to such scenes, and calmly continued to introduce the situation of the opposite train to Li Bo. The trains leaving the mining area mainly carry ore that has been initially screened and crushed, and occasionally they also carry felled logs and some local products from the mountains. Of course, there are also many miners on the bus who have received their wages and plan to go back to reunite with their families after completing several days of hard work, or who want to go to Changhua for recreation for a few days.
At this time, Captain Xue and others had just left the county town and divided into several routes to approach the Qiao Zhiya Manor near Daling. They pretended to be people who went into the mountains to collect herbs, collect firewood, and hunt, and slowly approached the manor, which was probably the settlement of the Koreans. But at this time, half of Qiao Zhiya's personal guards followed the car to Shilu, and the remaining personnel who stayed here had already received orders to lower their defense level. After all, the targets of protection were no longer here, and there was no need to maintain high-intensity patrols. guard.
But even so, there are still checkpoints on the boulevard leading to the manor. Captain Xue and others can only take a detour to avoid the surveillance range of these armed guards.
After they approached cautiously, what they saw was a basin of cold water poured on everyone's head. The manor, shaded by green trees, was surrounded by a 1.5-foot-high wall. It was impossible to see it from the outside. As for the situation in the manor, unless they continue to climb the mountain and reach the high point of the big ridge behind the manor, they may still be able to see a little bit of the scenery in the manor. But after climbing to a sufficient height, the distance from the manor will be extended to several miles away. Even if it can be seen by then, it will definitely not be clear, and the reconnaissance effect will not be achieved at all.
This is of course not a coincidence, but the owner of the manor has already considered security needs during the site selection and design stage, calculated a relatively safe range, and used topography and architecture to reduce security risks. Captain Xue also quickly realized this, knowing that this reconnaissance operation would be difficult to achieve anything practical unless they directly climbed over the high wall and went inside to see if there were any North Koreans.
Captain Xue, who prefers to be cautious rather than radical, naturally would not make such an irrational decision. He spent a lot of time regrouping the team, then selected several relatively secluded locations near the manor, and divided into groups to monitor the manor. of personnel entering and exiting.
Yes, that's right. When he had no choice but to do anything, the only strategy he could adopt was the most primitive strategy of waiting. Because the information he had was extremely limited, he could not even determine whether the North Koreans had stayed in the manor. He could only use this extremely inefficient reconnaissance method to try to confirm the movements of the North Koreans.
Of course, Captain Xue was not stupid enough to throw all his people here to wait for a rabbit that might not exist. After making arrangements, he took the remaining people back to the county seat and tried to find out more about it. News from North Koreans. But to his great disappointment, no local official news about the North Koreans' visit had been released. It was not until noon that his men finally found out that a group of important guests had been received at a restaurant in the city last night, including The local chief executive Qiao Zhiya.
Theoretically speaking, senior official Haihan would definitely receive the visiting North Korean crown prince in person, so the important guests having dinner with Qiao Zhiya would most likely be this group of people from Sanya. However, Captain Xue did not immediately understand why Qiao Zhiya did not hold the banquet in his private manor, but chose the reception venue in the county town that smelled of soot. Is there anything in this restaurant that you must try? If you miss it, you will regret it for the rest of your life. Special signature dish.
With the idea of finding out, Captain Xue also went to this restaurant, ordered a table of dishes as a foreign businessman, and then chatted for a while with the shopkeeper who took the initiative to say hello and establish a relationship, and he really made him come up with something to say. , only to find out that the owner of the restaurant and Qiao Zhiya were related by marriage, and I couldn't help but feel dumbfounded at the moment. No wonder this high-ranking official from Haihan had such an arrangement.
(End of chapter)