Chapter 278 Vladivostok is the father
George is not ignoring higher education. The key is that there is a step-by-step process. The most important thing for Amur at present is to lay a good foundation. Cultivating high-tech talents is a long process, and it is urgent. Useless.
Automobiles, airplanes, submarines, alternating current, etc. are all emerging industries. Even if George wants to train them, he doesn’t know how to train them and has no experience to follow.
Compared with weapons design, George pays more attention to basic industries such as metallurgy, petrochemicals, and materials.
Speaking of materials, if he wanted to build a bomber with a larger load capacity, George urgently needed aviation aluminum materials.
Aluminum is widely used in industry, but due to production capacity constraints, the price of aluminum was higher than gold and platinum for a long time, making it impossible to apply on a large scale.
In 1886, the electrolysis process of aluminum was conquered, making large-scale production possible.
In 1888, the first electrolytic aluminum plants were put into operation in France, Switzerland and the United States.
In 1889, Carl Bayer of Austria invented the Bayer process, which provided sufficient raw materials for electrolytic aluminum. Since then, aluminum has been widely used in various fields of industrial production.
The Russian Empire’s aluminum reserves exceed 500 million tons, widely distributed in Siberia and the Far East. The electrolytic aluminum factory in Vladivostok will be put into operation next year, and Vladivostok’s industrial capacity will reach a higher level by then.
But there's another problem here.
Although Siberia is rich in resources, transportation is the biggest bottleneck. If you want to develop Siberia's resources, you must first solve the transportation problem.
Before the Trans-Siberian Railway was opened to traffic, Amur was unable to build a second railway, so the matter could only be put on hold for the time being.
Before the arrival of winter, George went to Sakhalin Island.
There are about 70,000 people living on Sakhalin Island, most of whom are Chinese and some are Yakuts.
Yakuts, like the Chinese, are of the yellow race. They are one of the ethnic minorities in the Russian Empire. They are widely distributed on Sakhalin Island and the Amur River Basin. They mainly make a living by hunting and domesticating reindeer. Most of the deer products on the Vladivostok market are All are from Yakuts.
Through the life of the Yakuts, you can see how rich the resources of the Russian Empire are.
Reindeer are full of treasures. Deer antlers, deer blood, and other deer things are all sold by Lunke.
The Amur Governor-General’s Palace purchases deer products from the Yakuts, all by weight.
In Sakhalin, vegetables and fruits are far more expensive than meat. A kilogram of venison only costs 25 kopecks in Sakhalin, but a kilogram of apples can be sold for 50 kopecks.
These are summer prices.
If it is winter, the prices of vegetables and fruits will double directly.
"In Siberia, there are only people who die of laziness, not people who starve to death."
Kotunno, the top administrator of Sakhalin Island who retired from the Fu regiment the year before last, is very happy. This is George First time visiting Sakhalin Island.
Sakhalin Island is rich in resources. In addition to forests all over the island and inexhaustible fishery resources, oil, natural gas, and coal have been discovered one after another.
Last year alone, Sakhalin supplied more than 50,000 cubic meters of wood to Vladivostok.
George was originally worried that large-scale deforestation would cause damage to the natural ecology.
After arriving at Sakhalin Island, George realized that this was not the case at all.
The forest resources on Sakhalin are too rich, tens of thousands of cubic meters per year, which cannot destroy the natural ecology. Even the speed of felling is not as fast as the natural growth rate.
Sakhalin’s fishery resources are also extremely rich.
After the use of motorized fishing boats, Sakhalin's fishing capacity has been greatly improved. In the summer, if there is not enough fish to eat, it is used to dry the fish, and in the winter, it is used to make smoked fish.
In Yakut terms, how many fish you catch depends on how much your fishing boat can hold.
If it is winter, then the size of the fish you catch depends on how big your ice hole is. The winter hunting that George had seen on TV in his previous life could be seen everywhere in Amur.
“Can Chinese and Yakuts live in peace?”
George is most worried about integration.
The Yakuts speak the Yakut language and there are communication problems with the Chinese.
Different ethnic groups have different living habits, and conflicts are inevitable.
At this time, the level of governance will be tested.
It is not just Sakhalin. George has only one request for the governors of the entire Amur. No matter who they are, they should be treated equally and everyone should truly be equal before the law.
"Why not?"
Cotunno could not think of a reason for the conflict.
Conflicts arise only when interests arise.
The area of Sakhalin is too large. It covers an area of 76,400 square kilometers and has a population of only 70,000. On average, there is less than one person per square kilometer. There will be no conflict at all. Cooperation is the way to go.
Like Amur, there are quite a lot of wild animals on Sakhalin Island, which pose a great threat to humans, especially brown bears and wolves. They will even break into villages and towns at night. If you don’t cooperate, you will not be able to survive on Sakhalin Island. Island survival.
The cruel environment forces people to work together. It is the most basic thing for every household to have guns and dogs. The proportion of military rifles is very high.
George walked into a den randomly.
The entrance to Diwozi is very narrow and can only accommodate one person.
The interior is extremely spacious, with the living room covering about 40 square meters.
The kitchen and storage room are connected to the living room. George walked into the storage room. The first storage room was filled with dried fish, the second one was filled with potatoes, radishes and cabbage, and the third one was filled with various kinds of dried fish. Grow pickles and pickled eggs.
There are seven people in this family. It can be seen that their life is quite prosperous. The children are well nourished, their clothes are clean and decent, and even the dogs are kept fat and strong.
At George's Pier in the south of Sakhalin Island, logs waiting to be transported are piled up like mountains. There are almost none with a diameter of less than one meter. George even saw a giant tree with a diameter of more than 5 meters, with densely packed growth rings. Unclear.
But having too many resources is actually not good.
What Kotuno is most worried about is that there are too many forest resources in Siberia, so the wood cannot be sold at a high price. The Amur Governor's Palace does not allow Sakhalin to trade directly with the Japanese. If it were not for the legal The law is strict, and Cotuno has a heart for smuggling.
Combating smuggling is Cotuno’s most important task.
Vladivostok’s resources are so rich that they are inexhaustible.
Japan in the south is a resource-poor country, and most industrial raw materials need to be imported.
George is not opposed to trading with the Japanese, but he will never sell resources cheaply. The price of resources sold to Japan is controlled to be slightly lower than that of merchants from other countries.
Even if George doesn’t sell it, businessmen from other countries will.
Vladivostok is very close to Japan, much closer than the United States, the United Kingdom, and France, so Vladivostok’s products have an unparalleled price advantage.
Businessmen from Britain, France and the United States are not philanthropists. The shipping of industrial raw materials to Japan, plus the freight, cannot compete with the products from Vladivostok.
So Vladivostok is the big daddy of the Japanese.
(End of this chapter)