A week later, twelve transport ships arrived in Da Nang, escorted by a second-class battleship, two frigates, and a logistics ship.
These twelve transport ships brought a large amount of materials and labor to Da Nang.
Among them are 500 tons of various grains, 500 tons of high-quality coal, various construction tools, and 800 coolies.
These eight hundred coolies were selected from the Shilu Iron Mine. The criteria for selection were good performance during their sentence.
Well, most people who don't perform well will work until they die.
After the eight hundred coolies disembarked, the veteran Bai Changhong who was sent to garrison in Da Nang did some ideological work.
The general idea is that if you work hard here, as long as you perform well, you will be able to escape the status of coolie and become a naturalized citizen in up to three months, and escape from the sea of suffering.
Not to mention, after more than a year of mining, these coolies, whether they were pirates or prisoners of war, were originally desperate for life. Now when they heard this, they immediately gained hope, and they were very active and enthusiastic about working after that. serious.
This is not surprising. The life of a mining coolie is unknown to everyone. Every day you are so exhausted that you will be whipped if you do anything slightly wrong.
Coupled with the harsh environment in the mine, no matter how strong a man is, he will almost die in three years at most.
Now that there is hope that they can become naturalized citizens, their enthusiasm for work will naturally be stimulated.
The main reason why Xinghai Kingdom transferred them here is to have a group of its own people as the core.
In fact, the coolies in both coal and iron mines will gradually be transferred away and converted into naturalized civilians, replaced by prisoners of war purchased from Cochin.
Resettlement in another place is the best way to deal with coolies.
After all, it would be a bit cruel to let all the coolies die in the mines, and it would not be in line with the ideas of the elders for future generations.
However, if he is released on the spot and becomes a naturalized citizen, it may bring turmoil to the South China Sea Island.
After all, for most pirates and prisoners of war, Xinghai Kingdom can be regarded as their enemy. Their comrades, brothers or close officers died at the hands of Xinghai Kingdom.
Therefore, they were placed on foreign soil, leaving their homes, alone, and without any relatives. Under such circumstances, these naturalized people transformed from coolies could only cling tightly to the thighs of Xinghai Kingdom.
As for those hatreds, they will eventually dissipate with time, the establishment of a family, etc.
In just two months, Xinghai Kingdom mobilized nearly 50,000 coolies from Heimei City and Shilu Iron Mine.
Among them, 10,000 coolies from the Shilu Iron Mine were directly transferred to the Black Coal City to make up for the 10,000 coolies transferred from the Black Coal City.
Ten thousand coolies from Black Coal City were transferred to Da Nang, and the remaining 30,000 coolies were transported directly to Ngoc Tien County at the southernmost tip of Cochin.
This place has not yet been occupied by Zheng's army going south, and is still under the jurisdiction of the Ruan family.
But there was no need to say anything at all. When several warships appeared on the nearby sea, the local Ruan family government surrendered honestly.
The coast here has large mangrove tidal flats, which are not suitable for berthing large ships, but with cement, it is not difficult to build a self-gravity pier.
As soon as the 30,000 coolies disembarked from the ship, they immediately became busy.
Those who cut down trees and those who built campsites seemed to be highly motivated to work.
After the two accompanying infantry regiments disembarked, they immediately controlled the county seat of Yuxian County and dozens of miles of land along the coast.
The straight-line distance from Malacca is 830 kilometers, so it was designated by Wang Haitao as the forward base for the southbound fleet.
A large amount of materials were transported here in a short period of time. Thirty thousand coolies and the steam machinery that arrived worked together to build wharves, diamond forts, forts and a shipyard in just two months.
Of course, the shipyard here can currently only build some small fishing boats, as well as perform overhauls and maintenance of second-level battleships and below.
For the time being, first-level battleships can only return to Sanya home port or Xinghai City home port for overhaul and maintenance.
It has to be said that in just a few months, Xinghai Kingdom's maritime power has expanded by more than a thousand kilometers.
In the past few months, two more first-class battleships, four second-class battleships and several frigates have been launched to provide safety guarantees for the sea routes of Xinghai Kingdom.
In the new round of loan agreement between the Xinghai Kingdom and the Zhaowu regime, the Xinghai Kingdom purchased the Zhaowu regime's Xiang Island outside the Zhujiang Estuary and a Nan'ao Island off the coast of Chaozhou as the base for the Northern Fleet.
The completion of these two stations will greatly shorten the distance that Xinghai Kingdom can deploy its troops to the Zhaowu regime and the front lines of the officials.
Of course, this is the limit of Xinghai Kingdom's actions against the north for the time being.
Because it was stipulated in the semi-annual meeting of the Senate in 1649 that in the coming time, the main direction of Xinghai Kingdom's power investment is to open up Malacca and the Persian Gulf!
To this end, Xinghai Kingdom will mobilize all its strength and spare no effort!
The unremitting efforts here include the power of technology.
In order to ensure the absolute advantage of the Xinghai Kingdom's southward fleet in the face of the grape pressure, the Helan people and the British, the Xinghai Kingdom not only established multiple ports along the way, but also moved radar onto a wooden-hulled ironclad ship for the first time.
Of course, only the flagship of the fleet heading south received the honor of being boarded by radar.
With the existing technology of Xinghai Kingdom, radar is a thing that may not be able to be built in twenty years, no, it is estimated that it may not be possible in fifty years.
After all, this already involves the scope of electronic technology.
Therefore, all the existing radars in Xinghai Kingdom have been registered with the Ministry of Industry.
For those modern ships that traveled through time, as long as they could not be repaired, their radars were immediately dismantled, and after some maintenance, they were stored in the warehouse to extend their service life as much as possible.
This shows how seriously Xinghai Kingdom attaches importance to this southward strategy.
Two months later, Yuxian Port was officially completed, and more than a hundred transport ships began to arrive continuously, transporting large amounts of coal, cans and even various materials.
This is also a helpless thing. Now the warships of Xinghai Kingdom are driven by steam engines. Under such circumstances, it is necessary to reserve a large amount of coal.
However, in order to ensure the completion of the southward strategic plan, the Ministry of Industrial Affairs also convened many technical personnel to build a new generation of capital ships and weapons for the navy and even the army.
This is not surprising. Whether it is the navy or the army, it is necessary to upgrade weapons and equipment.
Better weapons and equipment can allow fewer troops to exert greater combat effectiveness.
To this end, the weapons research project team led by Fang Xiaoyue proposed a plan to develop a 5,000-ton strategic battleship and machine guns.
In terms of weapons planning, the 5,000-ton strategic battleship is still a wooden-hulled iron-clad ship. However, considering that the service life of wooden warships is much shorter than that of iron ships, and the tonnage and cost-effectiveness of wooden-hulled warships, this should be the last generation of wooden warships. It's an ironclad ship.
