There is a medium-sized map of China hanging on the wall of Zhou Changfeng's duty room, with a scale of 1:5 million.
After He Cheng said goodbye, he stood in front of the map and examined it.
The map, bearing the title "Comprehensive Map of the Emperor Ming Dynasty", is basically consistent with the so-called Begonia Leaf, but there are still some differences along the long northern border.
For example, in the northwest direction, there is no Tannu Tuva, a small piece is missing; in the due north direction, there is a protruding piece, and it is bounded by Beihai Lake, Lake Baiga, to Tsarist Russia; in the northeast direction, it is basically bounded by Slave Lake. Ergandusi is the same, and there is a small and small oil mining base there.
There was a strange argument in later generations, saying that "if it weren't for the Qing Dynasty, it would have been impossible for the Han Dynasty to take over Tibet, Mongolia, and Xinjiang" to promote the achievements of the Qing Dynasty.
However, this is very absurd, because essentially what they did was just to maintain the rule of the dynasty, and the integration of Manchu and Mongolia was the foundation of the Qing Dynasty.
And due to the profound influence of Tibetan Lamaism on Mongolia, Tibet must be mastered. But if you want to securely occupy Tibet, you must also capture the territory sandwiched between Tibet and Mongolia.
The three are intertwined, either all or nothing.
This point also applies to the Han Dynasty. Border troubles in the north are inconsistent with maintaining rule. If you want to solve them once and for all, you must also capture Tibet and Xinjiang.
In fact, the Ming Dynasty has made great efforts in this regard and even figured out the right method. The alliance flag system implemented in Mongolia by the Qing Dynasty can actually be found in the Ming Dynasty. In the early Ming Dynasty, the Mongolian tribes were organized into guard posts to facilitate control.
The factor that seriously restricted the Ming Dynasty's external expansion was actually the population problem. Since the Song and Yuan Dynasties, there have been endless wars. In the early Ming Dynasty, the population showed great imbalance. The population in the northern region was pitifully small, which can be said to be a huge hole that is difficult to make up for.
When the northwest was recaptured in the early Ming Dynasty, it was almost no man's land. For example, there were only 830 households in Ganzhou; and such a sparse population was a mixture of Hu and Han people, so much so that the Ming army needed to hire guides and translators to advance.
Until more than 20 years after the founding of the People's Republic of China, the total population of Shaanxi-Gansu was only 1.6 million, and the population density was only a pitiful seven people per square kilometer.
[Population density distribution map of the Ming Dynasty]
This seriously affected the Ming Dynasty's management and expansion of the northwest. After the population of the northwest gradually recovered to the level of tens of millions, the Ming Dynasty was already in the late stage of decadence.
Therefore, the Qing Dynasty and today's Hou Ming Dynasty actually stood on the shoulders of their predecessors in this regard.
In the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, despite constant natural and man-made disasters, the population of Shaanxi and Gansu provinces still exceeded 20 million. The huge army no longer had to worry about the losses and risks faced by marching in desolate no-man's land.
At the same time, because there was no influence from the San Francisco Rebellion, the progress and efficiency of the recovery of the Western Regions in the Later Ming Dynasty was faster than that of the Qing Dynasty.
Because the Junggar Khanate only reached its peak in the early eighteenth century, due to the San Francisco Rebellion, the Qing Dynasty missed the best opportunity to nip it in the bud. It would be troublesome to solve it after its rise, so it dragged on for seventy years in total, and it was not until the Qianlong period that it was pacified.
Then the Ming Dynasty launched a strategic offensive in 1684 AD, launching three conquests successively. After eleven years, it was solved before it grew into a nomadic empire with both firearms and mounted archery.
As for Tibet, it was a matter of course. The Kashote Khanate could hardly organize effective resistance and soon fell apart.
At this time, Zhou Changfeng's thoughts returned to oil.
In his memory, the ancient name Kuyi Island is now called Kuye Island, and the annual oil production there is about 200,000 tons.
This output is not much, and cannot compare with the Yumen Oilfield, which has over one million tons, let alone the Karamay Oilfield, which has nearly two million tons.
In fact, what's interesting is that Zhou Changfeng couldn't find Karamay after searching for a long time on the map at first, and his memory was blurred. Later, he learned that Karamay's name was "Yanzhou" in the Ming Dynasty.
The exploration team of the Ministry of Industry drilled the first test well here and successfully produced oil. Everyone called this place "Xuanzang", which means black treasure. However, in the process of word of mouth, it was mistakenly spread as "Xuan Zang". Therefore, after being linked to Tang Monk, rumors quickly spread among the people that there was the Flame Mountain, and various newspapers rushed to report it.
After initially confirming that there was a large oil field there, the emperor was also very happy and named it with the character "焱". This seemed to be a side confirmation that this was the Flame Mountain?
"If Daqing Oilfield can be exploited and put into production, we can probably close the door and watch the whole world fight." Zhou Changfeng's eyes fell on the northwest of Anning Mansion.
Anning Prefecture is also Harbin, and the Daqing Oilfield is located 150 kilometers northwest of it.
However, Zhou Changfeng knew that this was wishful thinking, because the difficulty of mining and refining the Daqing Oilfield is second to none - its average depth is 1,300 meters, and the quality of the oil is not good. It is a highly paraffinized acidic heavy oil, which is difficult to refine. Very big.
Historically, more than a thousand experts, 50,000 workers, and 70,000 tons of equipment and equipment were used to develop the Daqing Oilfield.
In fact, as the Ming Dynasty began large-scale industrial construction after the constitutional government, the demand for energy also increased. Although coal resources were quite abundant, the more important oil was very poor.
The currently accepted geological theory holds that oil is produced by the remains of ancient marine organisms buried underground under high temperature and pressure. Therefore, large oil fields can only be found in strata that were once oceans in ancient times. This is the theory of marine oil formation.
Many places in China are continental, so theoretically China's oil reserves are pessimistic.
Despite this, the Ministry of Industry continues to send exploration teams to the Northeast region, and some foreigners who support the theory of continental oil formation also come to inspect.
The year before last, an exploration team of the Ming Chongsheng Petroleum Company discovered oily sand in a depression near a village in Anning Prefecture. This discovery immediately ignited world public opinion - is this going to subvert the current geological theory?
However, Daming National Oil and Gas Company and Chongsheng Petroleum Company successively drilled seven test wells in half a year, with depths ranging from 400 meters to 1,000 meters. However, none of the wells successfully produced oil, and only one was 800 meters deep. Wells found sticky oily sands.
As a result, the news that "oil fields are suspected to be discovered in continental terrain" suddenly became less popular.
After Chongsheng Oil Company returned home, several engineers and geologists from Daming Oil and Gas Company believed that success was actually only one step away. So after negotiations, the American Sun Oil Company and Nobel Drilling Company volunteered, hoping to take over the project.
In this era, it is quite difficult to drill wells exceeding one thousand meters. Most countries have relatively weak technology in this area, and Americans have relatively rich experience.
In short, after several twists and turns, in the late spring of this year, the joint drilling team successfully broke through the oil layer, and industrial oil flow gushed out from Well No. 3, which was as deep as 1,300 meters, thus declaring the subversion of the theory of marine oil formation. .
