Lu Xiaofeng did not return from the "hunting" until November 20, which made Xu Xiangdong, vice president of the Southern Railway, who had been waiting for more than a month, even more dissatisfied. Fortunately, their company is also a well-known large-scale enterprise in the local area, with many branches, and the core assets that are still retained in hand are the Southern Cone Two Oceans Railway, Xingnan Port Wharf, Araukan Port Wharf, Southern Railway Fishery Company, Southern Railway Trading Company and many other very profitable enterprises, and its one-year turnover, to be honest, the Blackwater Pioneer Team can not be compared.

What is the result? Chen Ke, the leader of the Blackwater Pioneer Team, first made a very unreasonable request (to help them build a railway), and his attitude was tough, and he did not hesitate to threaten the future source of trade goods of the Southern Railway, which made Xu Xiangdong have to urgently take a ship from Yantai to the port of Vladivostok, which is still under construction, to extinguish the fire. Unexpectedly, he just arrived here, but was told that Chen Ke urgently returned to Miaojie County for some reason, dealt with several local riots, and gave full authority to negotiate affairs to the new Ussuri River District Administration Commissioner and garrison commander Lu Xiaofeng, which was even more dissatisfied.

But even if you talk to Lu Xiaofeng, you can talk about it, no matter how big it is, you will refuse it. But this guy actually led troops to various native tribes to declare their demonstratives, and then returned after more than a month, which made the five irritable Xu Xiangdong almost get angry. I believe that if it weren't for the sudden coldness of the weather this year, fine ice floes have begun to appear in the offshore waters, and if he had to take risks in sailing, he would have returned to Shandong by boat, saving himself from being angry in this broken place.

But no matter what, now that they are back, Xu Xiangdong can only clean up his mood a little and talk to them about investing in the Vladivostok port and railway.

Lu Xiaofeng's return caused a sensation in the city, because there were hundreds of Jurchen captives and some tribal elders and leaders who expressed their obedience to Vladivostok City with him. These natives who live in the peninsula and the nearby Suifen River valley have always been extremely realistic, and they do not shed tears when they see the coffin. In the past, they were subdued and frightened by the Qing court, so they expressed their submission, gave them tribute, gave them the opportunity to trade with each other, and at the same time received a little reward from there from time to time, which naturally became the iron core of the Qing court, and created a lot of trouble for the people on the east coast.

But now, the five settlements set up by the people on the east bank along the Ussuri River have been fighting against each other all the year round, and although the people on the east bank have not been able to gain the upper hand, and even the losses of personnel and materials are very large, is the loss of the natives not great? In these years of fighting each other, the Qing court only sent a few soldiers and horses, and only a few hundred people were dispatched at a time, which means that most of the pressure was borne by the local natives. If this time is short, it is better to say, if the time drags on as long as it is now, how can they know that they will not complain? It's impossible to think about it!

This time, Lu Xiaofeng mobilized hundreds of men and horses, brought enough horses, water and ammunition, first started to clean up the native tribes on the Golden Horn Peninsula, and then extended to the area of the mouth of the Suifen River on the left, killing and wounding more than 1,000 Jurchen tribes in Haixi, and his own casualties were only more than 100 people (more than half of them were caused by an enemy ambush in a complex terrain), and suddenly made a name for himself in the nearby area, so that some native tribes who had heard of the majesty of the people on the east coast for many years heard of the wind and surrendered. The situation opened up all at once.

Lu Xiaofeng's next plan was to forcibly relocate some disobedient tribes who had been defeated in this conquest to settle around Vladivostok. Then give some rewards to the tribal leaders who took the initiative to vote, such as tobacco, cane sugar, silk, spirits and other rare things, and then give their tribe some strictly controlled steel weapons, arrows, leather armor and even war horses (of course, they have been in the limelight), let them move to some transportation nodes to live, shield the perimeter of Vladivostok security, and also connect with the Shuangchengzi area.

Xu Xiangdong waited patiently for Lu Xiaofeng to toss like this for two more days. Two days later, on November 22, the two sides sat face to face and discussed the investment in the Southern Railway.

"To tell you the truth, our company's financial burden is very heavy right now, and we simply can't afford to build two railways at the same time, not to mention that this second railway has no prospects for profitability." At the beginning, Xu Xiangdong unceremoniously got straight to the point, only to hear him continue: "Our company has done a lot of preliminary work for the construction of the Jiaoyan Railway. We began to take inventory and clean up assets two or three years in advance, and negotiated the price with some customers who took over, and also held a general meeting of shareholders and passed a resolution to suspend the distribution of profits for five years, for which we got together 2 million yuan in cash as the start-up capital of the rubber tobacco railway. To tell the truth, the two million is already all the funds that our company can get in the short term, and it has been deposited in the special account for the rubber tobacco railway project located in the United Industrial Credit Bank, which can be withdrawn at any time to purchase all kinds of railway equipment, pay all kinds of insurance and transportation costs, and hire all kinds of engineering and technical personnel. On the Denglai side, we also borrowed 1 million yuan in cash from the Bank of Taiwan by pledging the railway, which was used to pay for the allowance, food and lodging expenses for the construction of the railway by employing migrant workers in Shandong. ”

"Three million yuan of funds has been smashed, it looks like a lot, doesn't it? But I'm telling you, Commissioner Lu, this money is not enough. Our initial predictions were a bit too optimistic, but now it seems that the total cost of the railway has soared to 4 million yuan, and our company is worrying about it, trying to find ways to find funds, how can it be possible to spend extra money to build a railway in an unrelated place at this critical moment, and there is no profit prospect at all? Xu Xiangdong said.

What he said earlier about the cost of the rubber smoke railway is not all a lie. In fact, at present, it seems that the 2 million yuan in cash raised by the Southern Railway Company is a bit tight in the local area, and although it is a big deal to buy railway equipment, there are also a lot of transportation and insurance costs, and the employment costs of engineering and technical personnel (if you want people to go to Denglai, you must have high wages and high subsidies) are not to be underestimated, so it is impossible to have spare money to support Denglai.

In Denglai, the one million yuan borrowed from the Bank of Taiwan to pay for the wages, food and lodging expenses of migrant workers is actually a bit tight, and it is far from being used for four or five years, and normally it is enough for one year's expenses. At this time, it was up to the Denglai Pioneer Team to come out, and they had a production and construction corps of more than 20,000 people left (the rest had immigrated to the east coast one after another), and the expenses of this corps were all borne by themselves. People in Yantai, Fushan, Ninghaizhou, Qixia, Laiyang, Jimo, Jiaozhou, Jiaoxian and other places near the railway line are also regularly requisitioned by the local government to work on the railway construction site, and these expenses are also borne by the local government itself.

In this way, it is equivalent to the most terrible personnel costs being absorbed by the Denglai Pioneer Team, and the burden of the Southern Railway Company is greatly reduced, and they only need to hire some additional migrant workers to build stations, freight yards and other railway ancillary facilities to train the staff of the future railway. If you save a little money, one million yuan is a bit tight, but the gap is not very large, you know, the government of the Denglai Pioneer Team will also assist the railway project every year part of the grain, draft animals, forage and medicinal materials, which also saves a considerable amount of expenses. If the railway is built for four years, this part is worth millions of dollars, which is very considerable.

To sum up, if the Jiaoyan Railway can be completed in four years, the construction cost of this railway will be more than 3 million yuan. If the materials aided by the Denglai pioneer team and the labor force requisitioned are converted, the cost will not reach four or five million yuan, which is 2.5 times that of the mainland, which is indeed very amazing. At the same time, it can also be seen that the Southern Railway Company and the government of the Denglai Pioneer Team have really worked hard for this railway, and the accumulation of years has been in vain, and there is really no energy to build a second line, the Pingrong Line.

And the Binh Rong line has no energy in a short period of time, so how can there be spare energy to build a railway on the Golden Horn Peninsula?

Lu Xiaofeng was a little stunned when he heard Xu Xiangdong say this, but he quickly adjusted his thinking and said: "In fact, the cost problem, Captain Chen has also explained to me before, is it enough for the Bank of Taiwan or the Northwest Reclamation Bank to borrow more?" The Jiaoyan Railway pledged out to exchange for a loan of one million, which must be too little, and I think I can borrow an additional million yuan. In this case, it is still possible for us to find a way for the North Koreans to send out less than 20,000 laborers, so that the railway cannot be built. At most, there is a difference of hundreds of thousands of yuan, let's think of a way, now that the gold mine over there in Huma Fort has resumed production, there will always be an income of more than 100,000 yuan per year, and it will be almost the same in a few years. Vice President Xu, our sincerity is really enough, what do you think? ”

"Can we say something really?" Xu Xiangdong rubbed his forehead, looked at Lu Xiaofeng, and said, "Your Blackwater Pioneer Team said that the only one who can really invest now is the Huma Gold Mine, which doesn't know that it can produce stable gold, right?" Even if you can produce gold stably, you can collect about 150,000 yuan a year, and it will be less than 500,000 yuan in three years, which is far from the conservative estimate of 2.2 million yuan of railway construction funds! Even if you can really force the North Koreans to send another 20,000 people – not to mention whether they will blow up their hair – to bring their own food and tools to build roads for free, then there is still a cash gap of 1.8 million yuan, how can this be solved? Don't tell me to let us take out a loan, our company won't accept it! ”

"We are now developing steadily in the whaling industry, the production of high-grade fur is also increasing day by day, the number of cured meat and salted fish exported to Shandong and Ningbo is also increasing year by year, and the existence of Sakhalin Industrial Base, the economic potential is very large.

"It's not interesting to talk about that." Xu Xiangdong glanced at Lu Xiaofeng and said lightly: "Commissioner Lu said this, can I understand it as a threat?" Yes, you can do this, and you can have a big impact on our development in Terrai (mainly affecting the commercial operation of the railway annex), but this is not a reason for us to give in unprincipledly! We really can't afford to bear the burden of a loan of one million yuan, not to mention that you may not be able to make the North Koreans obediently send people to build roads. ”

As soon as Xu Xiangdong said this, his words were a little stiff. Lu Xiaofeng thought for a long time with a sad face, and finally frowned and said: "Then if we use some assets on hand as collateral and borrow 500,000 yuan from the Northwest Reclamation Bank, will your company agree to help build such a railway?" ”

"That's only a million dollars, which is still not enough." Xu Xiangdong's attitude was very resolute, he really didn't see the rabbit and didn't scatter the eagle, just heard him say: "Your million yuan is only enough to repair the section of this railway located in the Golden Horn Peninsula, about more than 30 kilometers, it is definitely not enough to repair to the east bank of the Suifen River, don't be delusional." ”

"Well, we are also planning to build a new settlement at the northern tip of the Golden Horn Peninsula, and we have decided to call it Xinzheng Township (located near the southwest coast of the city of Artem, about 35 kilometers from the main city of Vladivostok). If it really doesn't work, it is not impossible to build the railway to Xinzheng Township first. Lu Xiaofeng said suddenly.

Xu Xiangdong was a little speechless when he heard this, and only after a long time did he ask, "Has Commissioner Lu's idea been authorized by Captain Chen?" If it is authorized, then it is not impossible to try the existing funds. However, may I ask an irrelevant remark, why are you so obsessed with building a railway in such a desolate land? Do you want to build the railway to Harbin? ”

"It's not impossible for Vice President Xu to understand it like this. Now the Ussuri River basin is the focus of the development of the entire Heishui development team, and the place where resources are inclined. And if we want to conquer the indigenous tribes in the inland areas that have been influenced by the Qing court for many years, with our current strength, I am afraid that the development is a little too slow. You know, there is no such thing as the Amur River to transport things to us in this place, everything can only be transported by land, so there is only a railway. Moreover, Vladivostok has now been positioned as the most important port, material distribution center, and political center in the future under the jurisdiction of the entire Blackwater Pioneer Team, so this railway will also be built sooner or later. Otherwise, if you return home one day, where will we find someone to build the railroad for us? Therefore, this time, even if the conditions are not met, it will be launched, and Captain Chen is also worried that there will be no such store in this village. Moreover, taking a hitchhiker built on the Jiaoyan Railway can also save a lot of costs, right? Lu Xiaofeng finally said: "Ah, by the way, build a part of the railway first, this is not what Captain Chen meant, but my inspiration, haha, I have to report to the top to see what he thinks." Therefore, please ask Vice President Xu to continue to live here for a while, anyway, this will not be able to sail outside, the work in Shandong is still progressing steadily, and you don't need to go back to the town as the commander-in-chief, just leave it to the people below. ”

"What a steady advance! The earthquake in Shandong has just ended, and there are many things to deal with, so I am really not at ease if I don't go back. This time it's really your big mistake, sitting in this dry cat winter, waiting until the middle of March next year to freeze and then go back, I don't know how much it will be delayed, alas. Xu Xiangdong said a little speechlessly: "It's not me who said, you guys of the Blackwater Pioneer Team, up and down are really happy!" The Huma Gold Mine finally produced gold, and I didn't know how to calm the financial hole and develop the people's livelihood first, but I first hollowed out my mind to build the railway. If Denglai and Ningbo know about this (they will definitely not be able to hide it), do you see if they will continue to give you all kinds of materials and cash subsidies every year! It must be known that you are not stupid, and in the past, we saw that your financial income was small and your combat tasks were very heavy, so under the unified guidance of the state, we gave you money to spend and spend. But now you're actually playing with railways, what do you think about others? Let me tell you, Ningbo still doesn't have a kilometer of railway, think about how to settle them in the future. ”