At this time, Hu Xiaolin, Peng Qiang and others were counting the number of orphans who were transported back to the Red Wharf, counting how many girls there were, and saying that these girls would grow up in a few years......

At this time, Sun Lao and Zhu Beiguo were also talking about this matter, of course, their focus was not on the sister, but on making some forward-looking assessments of this immigration channel.

Zhu Beiguo said to Sun Lao, now Macau's navigation school is just a signboard on the surface, in fact, it is a kindergarten, in the past few months, Ingres has doubled the size of the orphanage, the latest data is that the orphanage is currently one to four years old children 195 years old, the gender ratio is a bit unbalanced, there are more girls, there are 152, Ingres told me, now north to Shaoguan, east to Huizhou, west to Lianzhou, as long as there is a Catholic church, The Macau House of Mercy has assigned special personnel to do the adoption of orphans.

Most of the funds we gave for the activities were used to take in and transport orphans and buy off local officials, and it seemed that the money was well spent, and when we were in Macau, Ingres had to report to the Pride almost every day, and she also took the account book to compare, and it seemed that the grandmothers did a good job.

According to our estimates, as long as the money can keep up, there are currently only about seven or eight to a dozen orphans per month, but in a year's time, this number should increase.

Because now we have learned that the Holy House of Mercy Orphanage actually takes in a large number of local orphans in Macao, usually from three sources: one is Portuguese orphans and orphans of mixed Chinese and Portuguese descent, which is the key object of acceptance. The second is the orphans of Chinese families who are resident in Macao, these Chinese families are usually converted to Catholicism, and they belong to children whose family conditions were originally relatively good, but they have fallen into the middle of the family path or become orphans in the event of a disaster, however, this kind of children is not all accepted, not because of the relationship of human blood, because Chinese families are usually relatively large, and orphans are often taken in by other families in the family after they appear, so the orphanage adopts the principle of voluntary acceptance of such orphans.

The reason for such a change is that the imperial court realized that the remnants of the Ming Dynasty were also competing with the imperial court for the church in these areas, and in order to completely cut off the support of overseas churches for the Ming Dynasty, the Qing court is now relatively tolerant of the activities of the church, of course, this is likely to be temporary, once the remnants of the Ming Dynasty in the south are completely purged, The imperial court may turn its face on the church---- it seems that the church in Macau still sees this very clearly.

We know very well how long this buffer period is, probably from now on, to the period before and after the promulgation of the sea relocation order, but Zhu Beiguo must not say to Ingre---- this buffer period is only about three to four years, when Emperor Yongli was strangled by Wu Sangui with a bowstring in Kunming, with Zheng Chenggong seizing Dayuan Island, after the Qing court implemented the sea relocation order, the church in Nanyue will be hit hard.

Therefore, Zhu Beiguo said to Sun Lao, so we must establish a secret immigration channel under our control before this.

Sun Lao listened and thought so.

Then the two talked about the personnel appointments of Dai Xiaoshan and Irush, and the two came back with the Pride this time because they wanted to organize their personal belongings and bring them back to Macao, and they would be stationed there in the future, and now the two had connections with local Chinese businessmen, which was very beneficial to their work.

In addition, the Supreme Executive Committee has instructed Xia Xiaoou to allocate special funds to buy a property in Macao City as an office and living place for the two of them, and the initial budget is 3,000 taels of silver, Zhu Beiguo said, the housing prices in Macao are higher than those in the mainland, but they are still relatively cheap for us, and in Macao, you can buy a set of two-entry bungalow houses for 100 taels of quasi-silver, Xia Xiaoou gave the two representatives a budget of 3,000 taels of silver, including office expenses for the purchase of industrial furniture, in addition, A salary of one hundred taels of silver is given to each of the two people every month.

According to Lao Ba, these expenses will be settled in the tax of the companies in the future.

As for the ** they stationed here, the Executive Committee is also considering giving them salaries, and as for how much, it may be the same as the two trade representatives in Macao

Two days later, after unloading the goods needed by Xin'an City and purchasing some supplies, especially those needed by the Ledi Department Store, the Pride set sail and left the Blue Pier as planned.

On the same day, the Red Mansion called, appointing Xiao Pingguo and Gui Xianning as the second and third vice governors of Xin'an City, and the two were officially left in Xin'an City, at the same time, the current Xin'an Governor Hou Xianglin has submitted a resignation report to the plenary assembly, and handed over all the administrative power to **, but the Red Mansion finally decided to let Hou Xianglin act for a while, at least wait for the next return voyage of the Nicole to discuss the governor candidate, and said that you had better take these three young people for a while, Hou Xianglin had to accept it.

Sun Lao has decided to go back to the Red Mansion to take over Lao Ba's position and continue to be his full-time chairman and chef in the Red Mansion, but all the members of the Executive Committee have agreed that Sun Lao can follow the Nicole at both ends in the future, and Duchess Margaret will also follow Sun Lao back to the Red Mansion to have a look.

On June 9, 1658, the Pride set sail south, and six days later, finally arrived at the Red Pier on Mornington Island on the afternoon of June 15.

Kilometers of coastline, from the Red Wharf to the mouth of the Blue Green Creek, are now a busy industrial area packed with people.

At the Red Wharf, in addition to the original two steel-and-timber tower cranes with human winches and pulley blocks, a new ore conveyor belt powered by four Stirling engines was added.

The conveyor belts are located at both ends of the T-shaped pier, which is a large project designed and presided over by engineer Wang Xue, in order to liberate the crew of the Nicole from repetitive and heavy manual labor.

This conveyor belt is made of multi-layer thick canvas as a carrier, although the ore can not be too much at a time, but it does greatly save labor, this system is also a masterpiece of the mechanical group, almost all the key components are the materials in the cave, the good news is that the mechanical group has been able to use the existing materials and a small part of the second-generation equipment to draw a gourd to make some of the parts.

Shortly after the last time the Nicole set off for Dili, the group started this project, because everyone finally experienced how difficult it was to take the ore out of the hold of the Nicole and transport it to the deck and dock, the process required much more work than loading the ore into the hold at the Blue Dock in Xin'an Port, and the transfer of all links was extremely laborious, and the crew was so tired that they had to torture it again when they got home, and the crew complained about it.

Moreover, this is only a small amount of ore from Sulu and Macao, and if it is imported from Timor Island on a large scale in the future, no one dares to think about what kind of people will be tired.

Considering the increasing number of loading and unloading operations in the future, there was a consensus that the loading and unloading facilities at the terminal must be greatly strengthened.

Although there is already some labor in the family now, if this labor is consumed in this kind of work, it is still very worthwhile, not to mention that it will still be tiring to the point that it is still the traverser crew of Nicole.