Entering October, the first snow fell in Beihai Town. With every family lighting a stove, "Cat Winter" is about to begin again.
Coal has been produced in Ezochi, but the amount is not large. Chen Qingsong heard the report from Sheng Haizhou that the coal currently transported to Pingyuan Town was only a few thousand kilograms. This amount of coal is not enough for Beihai Town to use for one day, and it is useless to bring it back.
From the time Wang Yuanfang and the others came back to now, the Thor has been dispatched three times in total. The first time was to transport prisoners to dig for gold; the second time was to bring the two companies of Rikichi and Pan Xiucheng to Ezo, replacing Katsu Kaishu and Torayoshi; the third time was to go south to Sendai Clan, in addition to conveying Sanwa to Katsuyama In addition to sending silk and sugar, the owner of the village house also brought back more than 5,000 refugees.
After going to sea again and again, most of the more than fifty sailors on the Thor are now proficient in Mandarin. Deng Fei and Liu Sheng began to conduct ordinary crew training courses for them.
It is said that in modern time and space, if you want to become a seafarer, you need to pass exams in four subjects: driving, engineering, radio, and electronics and electrical. However, the driving subject alone includes four theoretical courses: navigation, ship maneuvering and collision avoidance, ship management, ship structure and freight, and of course maritime English and sailor business.
Deng Fei's more than half a year at sea has made him very tired. He said that he is even more tired than before when he was a sailor. He had to participate every time he went to sea. In addition to being in charge of driving, he also had to take charge of the engine. If Liu Sheng were here, the two of them could share the burden, but Liu Sheng has also been very busy recently, and he doesn't always follow the boat.
The two discussed privately and decided to take a month's rest and focus on training the crew. After Zhao Xin heard about it, he brought in twenty more refugee girls and asked them to learn radio operation and Morse code together.
Denzo Katsuyama and the boss of Murataya, according to what Zhao Xin told them before, selected ten people from Ezochi's men and returned with Katsu Kaishu. With a stroke of his pen, Zhao Xin sent all ten people into the military camp to experience the feeling of being ravaged.
Zhao Xin himself has recently been busy inspecting match production equipment manufacturers in another time and space, and has not shown up in Beihai Town for several days. But when the guy came back, except for a batch of chemical raw materials for making matches, he didn't buy any other equipment.
"Hey, I made this matter complicated." Zhao Xin explained to Chen Qingsong who was eating lunch.
"What should I say?" Chen Qingsong didn't even raise his head, concentrating on the braised pork in front of him.
“What does it take to make a box of matches?”
Chen Qingsong thought for a while and said: "First there must be a matchstick, secondly there must be a match head, and then there must be a friction surface."
"What you said is the same as what you didn't say." Zhao Xin rolled his eyes and continued: "After I visited two equipment factories, I went to a small factory that produces matches. They specialize in making customized matches, and they can't measure them. Big. When you look at the results, I’ll go, this is too simple, why should I buy any equipment! Do you listen to what I say?”
"You keep talking, I'm listening." Chen Qingsong stuffed the last piece of braised pork on the plate into his mouth and looked at Zhao Xin's plate again.
"Well, what we lack most now is ordinary labor, right? Just ask the carpenter to lead his apprentice to process the matchsticks. After the matchsticks are finished, make a few large sieves to sift through them, and the miscellaneous wood chips will be removed, and then let the matchsticks be processed .Hey, I haven’t eaten yet!”
As soon as Zhao Xing started talking, he found that there were only two pieces of braised pork left on his plate. He didn't care anymore, he stopped the chopsticks that Chen Qingsong stretched out with one hand, picked up the chopsticks with the other hand, and quickly put the last two pieces of meat into his mouth.
"Hmm~~ It tastes really good. Shino is good at cooking!"
Chen Qingsong couldn't steal the meat anymore, so he put down his chopsticks and said with a smile: "What Shino, Miss Qinghe made this."
Zhao Xin puffed out his cheeks, chewed the meat, took two mouthfuls of rice, and then asked: "Who is Qing He?"
"What's your memory? You just kidnapped me from Yangzhou and forgot about it."
"Brother, there are more than thirty, how can I remember them?"
"That's right, you remember Teacher Xiao Shen."
"Hey, you have to speak with your conscience. I just came back and came to talk to you." Zhao Xin rolled his eyes, approached Chen Qingsong in a sly manner, and asked in a low voice: "By the way, the three people I brought back this time Among the dozen or so, are there any you like?"
Chen Qingsong glanced at him and said angrily: "I was simply deceived by some movie and TV show. A group of little girls are younger than my son. And, as soon as I saw their three-inch golden lotus, I would Thinking of my grandma.”
Zhao Xin was stunned for a moment, and then understood what Chen Qingsong meant. He smiled and continued to ask: "How about, like Wu Siyu, I also help you find a famous prostitute who has never accepted a client to redeem yourself?"
"Please forgive me. Looking at their age, I can be their father. I just thought about it at the beginning, but now that I have met the real person, I have no intention of it."
"That won't work. You are now the head of the internal affairs of Beihai Town. Caring for the masses is our consistent purpose."
"Okay, stop being so talkative. Go find your Shen Xuan." Chen Qingsong raised his chin and signaled. As soon as Zhao Xin turned his head, he saw Shen Xuan also in the cafeteria, looking at him. So he got up embarrassedly and left the single room, and came across from Shen Xuan who was eating.
"Why are you eating?"
Shen Xuan glared at Zhao Xin, swallowed her food, took a sip of water, and then said, "It's all your fault."
"Ah! What does it have to do with me?"
"You said it was none of your business. After I finished teaching my children today, I was stopped by Teacher Sun. He said that in the arithmetic homework I did yesterday, many of the answers were wrong. He pulled me back to He lectured me in the classroom for a long time. As a result, lunch was delayed."
It is said that after the nine-person group arrived, Zhao Xin asked these teachers to take time every day to give math classes to Shen Xuan and Tang Xiao's group of girls. As a result, except for a few girls who had learned accounting in the "Shou Ma Training Class", the other girls' math skills were terrible! This includes Miss Shen.
When Shen Xuan lived in seclusion at Shen Jingdan's house, apart from reading the Four Books on Women and some Ming people every day, she also learned to be a female celebrity; she had never studied mathematics.
Zhao Xin chuckled and said, "That's called mathematics, not magic. It sounds like learning fortune telling."
"Yes, everything Mr. Zhao said is right."
Seeing that Shen Xuan ignored him, he continued to ask, "Is your Aunt Di okay?"
"fine."
"Your father will probably be here next month."
"real?"
"Of course it's true. Your Shen family is going to have a son. Can he, the father, come?"
After Zhao Xin returned from Yangzhou, Shen Xuan heard the news that Cai Jiashu and his son had been killed, so she took the Xu brothers to pay homage to their relatives respectively. Since then, her attitude towards Zhao Xin has become much closer. Shen Xuan, who used to blush when talking to the opposite sex, is now able to make some silly remarks with Zhao Xin and make her bored.
"Hey, why don't you wear the bracelet I brought you back from Yangzhou?"
"You're just talking nonsense. I go to class every day, and if I wear that thing, it's in the way. What if it gets damaged?"
It is said that Zhao Xin bought her a pair of mutton-fat jade bracelets from Yangzhou, and Shen Xuan liked them very much. However, because the relationship between the two has not been confirmed yet, Shen Xuan is embarrassed to wear it.
Zhao Xin had lunch with Shen Xuan, then sent her back to her residence, and then went to the workshop on the east bank of the Xila River. The current workshop has been divided into three major parts: a cigarette factory, a military workshop, and a mint. A match factory will soon be added.
The reinforced concrete factory building that Chen Qingsong promised to build has been completed. After simple decoration, the three factories have moved in. Fang Hua had been configuring black powder, and considering safety issues, he did not move it. It is said that since Teacher Fang joined the military workshop, the production of black powder has jumped to a new level. The production of soil saltpetre that had troubled Zhao Liang and Zhang Fang for a long time was finally no longer a problem, but the output was still unsatisfactory.
After Zhao Xin learned about this situation, he asked Andrew to help buy a lot of potassium nitrate in the name of buying fertilizer for farming in another time and space. In addition to being able to configure mine gunpowder and fuse, this thing can also be used to make cigarette paper, as well as serve as a catalyst and mineral processing agent.
Twenty pieces of the Colt 1851 Navy revolver produced by the military workshop have been produced. The Army has no use for this stuff, and most of it is currently distributed to security police. Zhao Liang also started to teach apprentices. He selected 20 half-year-old children who were agile and agile from the school. They had classes in the morning and went to the workshop as apprentices in the afternoon. However, the first thing these teenagers need to learn is how to use various measuring tools and help them get started. When Zhao Liang was processing parts, they stood by and watched how he operated.
Zhao Xin made a tour before going to the workshop's warehouse. After putting the purchased raw materials for making matches into storage, he returned to the west bank of the river.
He has to leave tomorrow. The container ships that were previously handled by ship brokers have already been sorted out. The ship is from 2013 and is currently docked at a port in West Africa. According to the information sent, the ship has a carrying capacity of more than 60,000 tons, a length of 250 meters, and a draft of 14 meters.
After the vessel purchase procedures are completed, it must be sent back to the domestic shipyard for modification. Modifying such a large cargo ship is a big project. Because Deng Fei and Liu Sheng were busy training seamen, they wrote a list of ship modifications. The box guide pillars on the deck need to be removed, the pod side thrusters need to be pretended, the main deck needs to be reinforced and modified, etc. In addition, he also wants to purchase a batch of arms from Andrew to equip new ships.
Zhao Xin sat at his desk and calculated for a long time, and found that the gold on hand was no longer enough just for these expenditures.
Gold mining on Solenji Island has begun. The gold sand deposits here are mainly contained in the surface soil layer. The hardness of the deposits is low and it is relatively easy to mine.
The most critical thing is that Zhao Xin equipped the gold mining team with a set of underground metal detectors. This set of equipment can not only detect gold, but can also detect various other metal minerals by adjusting the settings. With this set of equipment, the gold mining team has avoided a lot of ineffective mining work.
Official boats now travel between Beihai Town and Soulengji Island every three days. In addition to transporting supplies, they also transport the mined ore back to Beihai Town for refining. According to a comparison of the weight of the ore and the gold extracted, the gold content of the ore on Solenji Island has reached 900 grams per ton, which is already an ultra-high-grade placer gold mine.
However, no matter how high the gold content of the ore is, the daily production of ore is only so much. Soulengji Island is not big, and the mines that produce gold can only accommodate a few hundred people at most, so there is no point in sending more people.
"It seems that I have to go to Ezo in person before the end of the year." Zhao Xin murmured to himself.
If you want to complete the material purchase with Andrew before the end of the year, you can only go to Tuka to help lead the way and exchange gold with the Ainu people on "Urupu" Island. By this time, Zhao Xin already knew that "Urupu" island was Defu Island in another time and space.
"I just don't know if I will run into Mao Zi?" Zhao Xin really didn't understand this period of history, and he didn't have time to read the information.
After thinking about it for a long time, Zhao Xin thought of another thing that needed to be done immediately. He asked the guards outside the door to find Xu Dayong. More than an hour later, Xu Dayong, sweating profusely, stood in Zhao Xin's office.
"Dayong, how have you been training with the army these days?"
"It's okay, I can handle it." Xu Dayong has been crawling around in the military camp these days, practicing shooting. Wang Yuanfang knew that Zhao Xin had other plans for him, so his daily training was very intense. In addition to daily training, he also had to run a small stove alone at night. For Xu Dayong, if it weren't for the poor food conditions of the army, he would have been unable to bear it long ago. This is not a military camp, it's hell every day when you open your eyes!
Zhao Xin didn't have time to talk nonsense with Xu Da, so he went straight to the topic. "I called you here because I have a mission."
"That's your order."
"Next month, if you go south with the ship, I will send you back to Qing Dynasty."
Xu Dayong was a little confused after hearing this. Go back? Just listen to Zhao Xin continue: "When the time comes, you and Lu Shoushan will go together. Those brothers you used to have can choose a few people to go back with you."
Xu Dayong thought to himself, could he let me go back and continue to be a pirate? So he quickly asked: "What do you want me to go back for?" "
"Selling salt. To be precise, selling private salt."
Xu Dayong was dumbfounded when he heard this, and said quickly: "Sir, I have never done this before!"
Zhao Xin said with a smile: "It doesn't matter if you haven't done it before. Let's establish relationships with various places first. My request is to open up the cargo transportation route from Henan to the Jiangsu coast by the spring of next year. It doesn't matter if you sell more salt or less, people Have it shipped to me."
Xu Dayong heard Lu Shoushan say once before that there are too many islanders and too few Han people in Beihai Town. Next year, he plans to bring in refugees from Henan and other places to farm. Thinking of this, he said embarrassedly: "I understand, selling private salt is just a cover, and transporting talents is the real thing."
Zhao Xin nodded and said: "According to my estimation, a nationwide drought centered in Henan will break out in the Qing Dynasty next year, so we have to rescue people. Silver and salt will be prepared for you, so you don't have to worry about these. Whether you are Whether it’s bribing the government, hiring private salt dealers, or even human traffickers, what I want is people, the more the better!”
Xu Dayong stood at attention and said: "Yes!"
Since the middle and late Qianlong period, the problem of private salt in the Huaihe and Huaihe regions has become increasingly serious. Not only are there more and more private salt traders and types of private salt, but the scale of smuggling is also growing. The main reason for this is that in addition to the corruption of officials, the Manchu Qing's use of troops everywhere, and the large donations from salt merchants, which caused the price of official salt to rise, another important reason is that the Manchu and Qing Dynasties inherited the "salt boundary system" from the Ming Dynasty.
The biggest feature of this system is that it is not based on administrative divisions, but on historical traditions, or geographical conditions (such as the distance between salt production areas and salt production areas) or even some special needs of the Manchus themselves. The country is divided into eleven major salt regions.
Take the Lianghuai Salt District, which has the most taxes as an example. Among the six provinces and districts under its jurisdiction, namely Jiangsu, Anhui, Jiangxi, Hunan, Hubei, and Henan, none of them completely markets Huaiyan salt; each province is covered by The official salt produced in two or more salt areas is divided up.
The salt affairs yamen at all levels are directly under the Ministry of Household Affairs of the Qing Dynasty. They can bypass the local government and directly handle matters related to the salt industry. However, when dealing with, preventing and cracking down on illegal salt, they cannot do without the cooperation of the local government. The government does not have independent authority to manage salt affairs. The occurrence of this embarrassing situation provides an opportunity for private salt intrusion.
The delineation of salt land boundaries was a rigid and backward policy implemented from the perspective of imperial tax revenue rather than the interests of the people. The most direct consequence of this policy is to cut off the direct connection between common daily necessities of salt and the market, cultivating the soil for the activity of private salt.
Zhao Xin's plan is to let Xu Dayong develop an underground trafficking network through private salt, bribe officials in various states and counties along the way, induce and win over salt trafficking groups in Lianghuai and Huaihe Rivers, and even use force to coerce the refugees from Henan to the coast of Jiangsu, and then economically transport the people to the island. Transshipped to the North Sea.
As for the funding of the entire operation, we have to thank Mr. Wang’s family in Yangzhou for the hundreds of thousands of taels of silver.
(End of chapter)
