Chapter 2481
As a senior technician in the group of time travellers, Yu Feng is naturally qualified to use Fort Victory's large database to query various secret information, including various mineral deposit information. He is also one of the few insiders regarding the mineral deposit information in the Sumatra Island area, so he believes that although the information provided by Tian Yeyou to the Star Island Colonial Zone is not false, it has a certain misleading effect, allowing Roger and Tan Juren to have a certain understanding of the local area. The prospects for industrial development have led to wrong judgments.
Yu Feng obviously has a more comprehensive understanding of the industrial system than Tian Yeyou. In addition, he is also engaged in shipping and has a good understanding of the transportation costs of bulk materials such as coal and iron. Naturally, he knows how to build a complete industrial system in this area. How difficult will it be.
Therefore, in his reply to the Xingdao Colonial Zone, Yu Feng clearly pointed out, "The development of your region should be based on environmental conditions, focusing on mineral development and petrochemical industry, and do not pursue large-scale and complete. If you achieve specialization and precision, in the future, The future is promising.”
Of course, Yu Feng was happy to satisfy the Star Island Colony's request for engines, generators and other equipment. Since Xingdao has provided a series of exclusive benefits to Yu's Shipping Company, it is natural to reciprocate the favor.
Considering that the local area already has preliminary oil production capabilities, fuel supply is not a problem. Whether it is an engine or a generator, the cost of use for Xingdao will be very low. However, for Xingdao, which has no industrial foundation, there is actually no demand for large amounts of electricity, and the scope of application is still relatively limited at this stage.
But in any case, the development of the Dumai Oilfield Project has opened a new window for the Sing Tao Colonial Area, allowing this border area that has not received enough attention for many years to finally get a good sustainable development project. The development progress of the Sing Tao Colonial Zone is much slower than that of other overseas colonial zones, but the emergence of the Dumai Oilfield Project can solve the most difficult financial problem in the development process for Sing Tao. In the future, Roger and Tan Juren will no longer have to tie their hands and can continue Many plans that had been put on hold for many years were launched one after another.
There are a large number of undeveloped areas in the South China Sea and the Java Sea, but in the past, the Star Island Colony was limited by funds and manpower and was unable to operate large-scale development projects. Now that we have finally invited the great god Tian Yeyou to stay here, other mineral projects will enter the development stage in the future, and the funding problem that has plagued Xingdao for many years is finally expected to be completely resolved.
Roger was finally able to dig out the "Star Island Garrison Plan" he wrote a few years ago and began to implement it one by one.
In other overseas colonial areas at the same level as Star Island, most of the current garrison sizes are already division-level. Similar to the Northern Theater Zone, a frontline area with frequent wars, in addition to the regular establishment, there are cavalry battalions, artillery battalions, amphibious battalions, Independent establishments such as engineering battalions and reconnaissance battalions have considerable strength.
Looking at Xingdao, although Roger established a garrison organization such as the South China Sea Independent Battalion very early, and upgraded it to the South China Sea Independent Battalion after the Battle of Manila during the Western Expedition in 1637, after that, due to the lack of funds and personnel, Due to other objective factors, the growth rate of the garrison size has slowed down. So far, it still remains at the regiment level with less than 3,000 troops, far behind other colonial areas at the same level.
As for those advanced but expensive new weapons and equipment, the Star Island Garrison is unable to deploy them on a large scale due to limited financial resources, and can only symbolically arm one or two companies. As for the naval fleet, since the military expenditure involved in building new warships is much larger, Roger can only stick to the warships built in the early years. While wealthy places like Zhoushan Colonial Area were already building and fielding steam ironclads on their own, the naval fleet of Xingdao Colonial Area still had a considerable number of warships that were old models built in the 1930s.
The commissioning of the Dumai Oilfield project allowed Roger to see the possibility of overtaking in the military field. As long as it can receive technical support from China, Singdao's navy has every opportunity to use internal combustion engines as the next round of warship updates. A new type of battleship with a power propulsion device. It is foreseeable that the ease of use and speed provided by this new power system will exceed that of existing warships, and the cost of use in the Star Island Colony will also be much lower than that of steam warships that use coal as fuel - after all Prior to this, the coal used in the Xingdao area was transported long distances by sea, and its cost was probably the highest among all overseas colonial areas.
For Civil Affairs Chief Tan Juren, the first goal he has to achieve is very simple, which is to use the development opportunities brought by the Dumai Oilfield project to introduce more immigrants to the Singdao Colonial Area. Only when the population base improves, Star Island will have enough labor force to implement other plans, which of course includes Roger's military expansion plan.
Before that, due to its location on the border, Xingdao became one of the main places of exile for serious criminals and prisoners of war. There were several hard labor camps in Xingdao alone, and thousands of prisoners were imprisoned all year round. Although these prisoners are cheap labor that can be used at will, because these prisoners often have a very low personal cultural foundation, the tasks they can perform can only be the simplest manual labor, and the value they can produce is actually Extremely limited.
Such a special environment also makes it difficult for people in Haihan to have the will to immigrate to the Star Island Colonial Area, even though the conditions officially provided by Star Island for immigrants are not inferior to those in other colonial areas, even in terms of land quotas and tax collection. Even with better preferential conditions, it is still difficult to attract immigrants to settle in Xingdao.
Today, the proportion of Han Chinese among the permanent population of Xingdao is also the lowest among all overseas colonial areas, not even half. Even among the local troops, a considerable proportion of soldiers are Malays, Thais, and Indians from Southeast Asia, as well as blacks from East Africa and the Middle East provided by slave traders. It can be called a multinational force. Even Roger himself often joked that his troops were a motley crew.
However, after the petrochemical project is built in Xingdao, the economic situation will inevitably be greatly improved. The local government will also have more funds to improve the local material living standards and improve the construction of health, culture, education, entertainment and other supporting facilities. High income and a good living environment can be used as conditions to attract Han immigrants.
Once the population base reaches a certain size, the Sing Tao Colonial Area can slowly wash away the public image of "a place of exile for criminals" and replace it with the image of an emerging industrial area and a regional trade hub, thereby returning the area under its control to Haihan Overseas. The development of the colonial area is on the right track. (End of chapter)