On January 15, 1648, when Pei Qin led more than 3,500 Far Eastern reinforcements to board the ship for Buenos Aires to change clothes, Xiao Mingli, a former member of the Central Executive Committee and Minister of Civil Affairs, who succeeded Shao Shude as commissioner of the Xiling District, also took a boat to Qingdao Port, which was under construction.

Nowadays, the construction personnel of Qingdao Port are increasing day by day, and the number of settled people is also increasing day by day. Among them, there are more than 2,300 residents of Qingdao Port, and the newly built Guiyi Fort and Xinxiang Fort also have about 5,100 residents (including soldiers of the Standing Force). From the numbers, we can see how the Ministry of Civil Affairs went to Qingdao Port to fill the population in a "frenzy", and there were already seven or eight thousand people in a newly developed port city, which was the first time in the history of the Republic of China on the east coast of China.

"The Fourth Bureau of Communications and Construction will soon send about 1,000 black laborers here to try to renovate more wharves before the Autumn Commodity Fair in May. It doesn't matter if it's a temporary wooden pier, we will gradually replace it with a permanent pier with a masonry and concrete structure. Xiao Mingli got on a horse-drawn rail coach specially designed to transport people, and his secretary, entourage, guards, and Minghui, the newly appointed mayor of Qingdao Town, also got on the train.

Earlier this month, Minghui had just beaten out a crowd of competitors to become the mayor of the newly formed town of Qingdao, which was also in charge of the nearby settlements of Fort Guiyi, Fort Xinxiang and Fort Sifang (the city of La Paz, which is still under planning). This Jun Guochu and Shao Shude burned bricks and tiles together, and later served as the general manager of the building materials company.

After more than a decade in this position, Minghui, who still had some ambitions, searched for people to do and beat many competitors. seized the hot position of the mayor of Qingdao Town. To know. This so-called mayor is not only in charge of Qingdao Port. It also manages three new neighboring settlements (directly under the XPCC Erbao Executive Committee), and according to state practice, the mayor of Qingdao Town will sooner or later become the future county magistrate of Qingdao County.

What is Qingdao County? That is the national trade center, shipping center and financial center built by the executive committee, and the position of the county magistrate of this county is much stronger than that of the CEO of a building materials company, and he will take it anyway!

"yes, I understand." Minghui nodded lightly and said, "Next, I will organize the residents of Guiyi Fort and Xinxiang Fort to give priority to the establishment of brick and tile wheel kilns, lime kilns, and cement kilns." The construction site is set at the Sifang Fort. How can this construction be without building materials? Nowadays, the domestic transportation capacity is so tight, and it is unrealistic and unscientific for all building materials to be transferred from other places, because it will inevitably delay the precious construction time. It's just that these kilns are easy to set up, and they don't have any technical content, but the number of workers needed is not a few, and the three of them add up to at least seven or eight hundred people, and these people probably need to be coordinated with Commissioner Xiao for your help. ”

"I'm not the Monkey King, how can I conjure up a lot of things for you. Don't look at the ships returning from New China and South Africa and say that there are more immigrants this year than last year, but people are needed everywhere in the mainland now. Then it's really not enough to point people. Xiao Mingli said with a smile, only to see that he stopped Minghui who was about to speak. Then he continued: "Of course, the construction of Qingdao Port is a top priority, and I will also ask the higher authorities to allocate some people, but it may not be too much, and you don't expect too much." ”

According to sailors on coal ships returning from South Africa last month (December) and November respectively, the number of migrants from the Far East who gathered on the island of New Huaxia this year is much higher than last year. According to the usual number of jù, it is likely that about 13,000 Ming immigrants will arrive on the east coast this year. These migrants had been disembarking in Xinhua Port since August last year, and they were transported to South Africa in early November after a few months of rest, and finally came to the mainland by boat, and now the families of these marching teams and the orphans of the Shun army in Qingdao Port are the first to arrive in the mainland.

"By the way, the first machinery factory in the northern Yazihu area has recently developed an automatic brick-making (brick) machine production line, which has been in trial operation for almost half a year in the brick kiln factory in Coal River Township, Ping'an County, and the effect is said to be good. At present, a machine factory is making the final improvement according to the problems reflected in use, and then it will be finalized and produced. At that time, well, counting the brick and tile wheel kiln under construction in Sifangbao, all six wheel kilns in China will use this automatic brick making machine, which can save everyone a lot of manpower and time for making zuò bricks, which is very cost-effective. Xiao Mingli said as if he suddenly remembered something.

"Automatic brick making machine? Sounds good. Minghui nodded, this is indeed what he wants, if the effect is indeed as good as Xiao Mingli said, then this will save him at least two hundred laborers, which is really a great help.

The horse-drawn railcar moves lightly on cast iron tracks. This kind of rail vehicle has low friction and can be pulled by two horses, which is at least 5-6 times more efficient than road transportation, and is the best choice for both freight and passenger transportation on the east coast at this time.

The carriage soon arrived at the Sifang Fort, which was being planned. Located in the city of La Paz, in the north of later Montevideo, the Fort of Four Directions is a famous agricultural region. At present, in addition to the barren grass, there is only a boxy wooden fortress standing alone in the grass, and there is a flagpole erected in the fortress, on which is hung a national flag of the Republic of China on the east coast of China, and there are about a dozen people walking around in the fortress, which seems to be working.

"In the future, Sifang Fort will connect itself with Guiyi Fort and Xinxiang Fort on both sides through the guò cast iron light rail, so that it will be more convenient to transport personnel and materials." Xiao Mingli got out of the carriage, pointed to the fortress in the distance, and said: "There will be a railway station outside the walled city, which can be used as a light rail station for horse-drawn rail passenger/freight cars, and as a heavy rail station for steam trains leading to inland areas. In the future, the light rail network between the five settlements of Qingdao Port, Bingtuan Erbao, Xinxiangbao, Sifangbao and Guiyibao will form a ring network. Well, this ring network is called a ring, if the existing area of Qingdao Port is not enough for the development of Qingdao Port in the future, then continue to expand to the outside of the first ring, and the new settlements are also connected with this light rail, which is called the second ring, the third ring, the fourth ring ......"

Hearing Xiao Mingli's evil planning plan, Minghui's forehead couldn't help but break out in a cold sweat, did he want to build a house in the first ring in advance?

"Sifangbao will be the only industrial town near Qingdao Port for a long time, not only brick and tile wheel kilns, lime kilns, cement kilns, vehicle repair shops and other things to be built, but also prepare to set up two new enterprises here. One of them is a flour processing factory, yes, the kind of machine in the Dafeng food processing factory in Xihu County in the north. In the future, all kinds of grain crops (mainly wheat) grown in nearby agricultural towns will be processed here into refined white flour, and even some wheat that has not had time to be processed in Xihu County in the north will be loaded and transported here to be processed to finished products before being exported to foreign countries. Xiao Mingli said, "The soil fertility here is also good, the climate and precipitation are also good, and there are many ready-made rivers, which should be very promising for the development of agriculture in the future." Besides, there is indeed a lack of grain deep processing enterprises in the south, and all the grain that cannot be grown can be transported to the Yazihu area in the north for processing. ”

In addition, recently the people of the Institute of Mechanical Engineering of the Academy of Natural Sciences have preliminarily designed a kind of silk reeling machinery. Well, it is a machine used to extract silk from the cocoon. According to the agreement we have reached with the Genoese, this silk industry is necessary, and the Genoese have shared with us some of their own skills and techniques for silk reeling and weaving - to be honest, the technology as a whole is not very good, but it is not without a lot of merit. Now they ask us to design a new silk reeling and textile machine, and then set up a new textile enterprise, specializing in the production of all kinds of silk, silk and linen blends, silk and cotton blended products, they have a wide range of sales channels, saying that as long as there is no problem with the quality, then they will definitely be able to sell. Just as they did in the heart of the silk industry in Lyon, we only had to beat Lyon, and perhaps Venice, and there was no one else in Europe who could compete with us in the silk industry. Xiao Mingli said.

"The design of the silk reeling machinery is not difficult, with the level of the mechanical institute of the Institute of Natural Sciences, it should take a few months to come up with a preliminary design plan and then hand it over to a machine factory for production, then we can organize trial production, the problem should not be big." Minghui commented, but after saying this, he changed his words again and said: "But the problem is that we are engaged in the silk weaving industry, where will this raw material be solved?" Silk is not like cotton, wool everywhere, this thing is currently at least in Central and Western Europe is rare, how to solve the problem of raw material source is actually a headache. ”

"You don't have to worry about the problem of raw materials, anyway, when the time comes, you only need to be responsible for cooperating with the technicians who come here to install and debug the machine." Xiao Mingli waved his hand, and said with a look of "I don't know the situation": "The supply of raw materials is indeed a little troublesome, but it is not completely unsolvable. Many of the Leans were able to get us a batch from France or Italy, and perhaps we ourselves could import a large number of silkworm cocoons from the Ottomans - which was also the main source of raw silk for Europeans on a large scale. Of course, the sericulture industry in Persia is huge and has a long history, which is worthy of our attention. Perhaps the Executive Committee would eventually order the New China region and the Second Fleet stationed there to organize a voyage to Persia, and if the door to trade with the Persians could be opened, perhaps the problem of raw materials for the silk weaving industry that had plagued us would be solved. (To be continued......)