January 21, 1650, Xingnan Port, sunny.

A 1,200-ton shear-sail carrier slowly sailed into the harbor with the help of a steam tug, and then a fresh water supply ship immediately sailed up to replenish the ship with fresh food from the mainland, all vegetables and livestock from the outskirts of Hungnam Port.

The ship was laden with rails and had a deep draft, so it was slowly docked on the side of the deep-water pier by the Sand River (Chico) under the tow of a steam tugboat. At the dock, two heavy-duty steam cranes that had just been installed in place also began to unload the cargo. The unloaded rails were quickly loaded onto horse-drawn railcars and then transported from the dockside directly to the distant roadbed, where the railcars began to be laid with the help of the Guò 1649 railcars. In addition, some other railroad tracks were transported onto horse-drawn wagons with a load of about 2 tons, and drove directly onto the Xingnan Highway via the Shugang Highway to some construction sections in the middle of the Liangyang Railway.

There are more than a dozen small steam ships behind this ship, including steam tugboats, steam coal supply ships, steam water supply ships, and occasionally one or two small ice repellent ships and disinfection ships, all of which are indispensable facilities for a modern port like Xingnan Port, with a total value of nearly 300,000 yuan, which is not a small amount even for a large Kang Cai En enterprise such as the Southern Railway Company.

"The executive committee has made such a big deal to allocate so many port ships at once, and in addition to squeezing us twenty-five yuan in cash, isn't this the sun coming out of the west?" On the wharf, Wang Qinian, vice president of the Southern Railway Company, said with a smile to Wang Tiezhu, captain and naval rear admiral of the "Common Market."

"They are all owed by the Executive Committee to the Southern Railway Company in the past, and as a major shareholder, the Executive Committee has not paid off its shares until now. That's at least 200,000 short. Only 100,000 of the 25 cash that came this time was shares. The other $150,000 is a subsidy for the current year. It was issued at the same time, and it is now deposited in the account of the United Industrial Credit Bank of Zài. However, now that the government is in financial difficulties, it is indeed not easy to squeeze out so much money and goods for you at once. Wang Tiehammer grinned, showed his yellow teeth, and said.

Wang Tiehammer had just been promoted to major by the Admiralty a while ago, but the position of commander of the Third Fleet, which had been rumored to be rumored to be, had not moved for a long time. It was not that there were any powerful people who opposed him to this position, but mainly because the Executive Committee and the Government Council did not agree with the continued expansion of the Navy. At present, the two major fleets have already made it quite difficult for them to raise them, and if they build a third fleet, they may have to continue to purchase ships, and the executive committee is afraid that the finances will go bankrupt immediately. Besides, recently Minister of the Navy Lu Ming was promoted to Chief of the General Staff of the Military Department, and the Navy was also awarded titles and promotions, and the appearance of chickens and dogs ascending to heaven made the Red Deer in the War Department jealous and hateful. Therefore, they also vigorously oppose the establishment of a third fleet by the navy, otherwise their own military spending is likely to be further squeezed out by the navy, which is unacceptable to the entire army system. That's it. Under the non-cooperation of many parties, Wang Tiezhu's commander of the Third Fleet was temporarily in vain. At present, the Admiralty is continuing to work on it. But I believe that nothing will change in the short term.

However, although the Third Fleet was gone, the Admiralty still planned to send Wang Hammer to the Pacific Ocean to be stationed in the port of Araucan. At the same time, he also allocated a number of sail frigates to him to form a fleet, which he commanded and was responsible for maritime security in the southeast and Pacific Oceans. As for the name, it is called the Second Squadron of the First Fleet, and Major Wang Tiehammer is the commander-in-chief of the detachment.

"This time, the news of France came back to the mainland, and it suddenly detonated the sense of crisis of the bigwigs of the Executive Committee." Wang Tiehammer carefully said to Wang Qinian, a veteran of the navy, "The French market is in a precarious situation, and it will be transmitted back to China in the second half of this year at the latest, and industrial production will be greatly affected by that time, and the domestic economy will inevitably fall into depression." As for the method to get out of the depression, and whether or not to get out of the depression, it depends on the various domestic response policies. Wasn't the purpose of sending the battleship USS Common Market and several frigates into the waters of the Southeast Pacific to secure the Pacific migration routes and the smuggling trade routes with Chile? As for the Spaniards' proposal that warships on the east coast should not enter the waters of the Pacific Ocean, and go to other countries, whoever likes to abide by it will abide by it, anyway, we are not going to give face to the Spaniards. Of course, we're not stupid enough to go on a cruise north to thrill the Spaniards......"

"The smuggling trade with the Spaniards looks very good, but there are bound to be many twists and turns. It's hard to say how big it will be in the future. Among them, the Spanish aristocracy, the Genoese monopoly merchants, the Dutch, France, England, Portugal, and Swedish smugglers, in short, offended everything they could. Although they are all businessmen, it does not represent the attitude of their country, but it is not a good thing to set up an enemy for themselves. Wang Qinian smiled lightly, and then said: "Of course, no matter how difficult it is, you have to do it." This world is like this, and the dead Taoist friends are not dead and poor. We have a crisis to get over, and we're missing a lot of profit elsewhere, so we have to make up for it from here. The cake is so big, if others eat more than one piece, you will eat less, if you can't talk about it, then you can only resort to force - this is the real universal value of this cruel world, everything else is false. ”

Isn't it? In this era when the Great Voyage has just entered the middle of the game, if there should be any axiom, it is probably only "the truth is within the range of naval guns". No matter how reasonable you are and how you can speak, you can't match the fact that others have more guns than you and thicker barrels than you. Yiqiē still looks at strength to speak, there is no justice, no human rights, only power!

“…… Therefore, this time, the executive committee was very kind and distributed part of the long-overdue materials and subsidies to support the Southern Railway Company to speed up the progress of railway construction. But what about people? There are still not enough people, and there is a shortage of people everywhere on the construction site, and if there is not enough manpower to replenish it, I can responsibly say that the Liangyang Railway will not be opened to traffic for four or five years. Wang Qinian and Wang Tiehammer chatted for a long time, and at this time they had already talked about the executive committee's intention to accelerate the development of the Southern Railway Company and increase the immigration efforts of the Pacific route, so Wang Qinian immediately raised questions.

"This executive committee is well thought out." Wang Tiezhu affirmed, "I have heard from the Ministry of Immigration in the capital that the mainland side will continue to send more than 1,000 Polish prisoners of war to Xingnan Port in the future." In addition, Livonian immigrants from Europe at their own expense and Italian immigrants introduced by labor brokers will be given priority to be directed here, and these people should be able to effectively supplement the shortage of manpower at some railway construction sites. If it really doesn't work, after the end of the summer grain harvest, the War Department will carry out partial mobilization in several counties in the south, organize a few thousand militias to capture some Klandians to be slaves, and the church in Dingxi County in the north has also been trying to move westward, and the contradiction with the Guarani people will inevitably become intense, and when the time comes, it is not too simple to find a Guarani from scratch to build the railway, it depends on whether you are determined or not......"

"In addition, the Executive Committee has already made up its mind." Speaking of this, Wang Tiezhu's face also became stern, as if this was a matter that might cause great social turmoil: "The Executive Committee has instructed the Government Council to raise funds a month ago and place intensive orders for a batch of migrant ships from the three major shipyards, striving to build them before the departure of the migrant fleet at the end of May, and then sail to the Far East on time. The number of new ships will reach an unprecedented 8, more than double the previous number, and after this batch of ships, according to the plan, the number of transport ships from Blackwater to Australia will reach 22, and the number of ships from Blackwater to South America through Australia will also reach 7. Excluding losses, it can send about 15,000 more people to the local area every year. In this, the Southern Railway Company will also benefit a lot, after all, there are as many as 7 ships transporting migrants for you. ”

In other words, as the size of the South China Sea Fishing Company's fishing fleet has grown, more and more sailors have been trained on its cod fishing vessels, which are twice as manpowered. Of these sailors, the average ones were assigned to merchant ships and migrant transports, and the better ones were assigned to the navy (which was in the minority, of course). In other words, the East Coast Republic can now have more transport ships, because the bottleneck of sailors that previously constrained the East Coast has been partially alleviated.

Of course, the sudden increase in the number of immigrants is also a test of the social accommodation capacity of the East Coast: there will be a huge shortage of housing, food, women, etc., in addition, too many Ming people entering the country will also lead to social indigestion, the efficiency of integration and assimilation will decrease, and the social atmosphere will change without the control of the Executive Committee, etc., in short, it is a bunch of troubles, which need to be properly handled, otherwise it may cause turmoil in the country. After all, the current old nationals are not stupid, whether it is to increase the number of migrant transport ships or increase the number of immigrants, the huge transportation and resettlement costs are actually dependent on them to subsidize, how to appease their feelings, and deal with the friction between the old and new nationals, is also a very testing thing.

"The people from the Ministry of Immigration said that the intention of the Executive Committee was very clear: at least the immigrants of the first five years of the Pacific Route would settle in the annex of the Liangyang Railway (one mile on both sides of the railway) under the Southern Railway Company. Of course, you don't have to be so honest, the Spaniards in Southern Patagonia have sold us a lot of rights, and there are many terms that are ambiguous and can be played on the sidelines, so you don't have to be confined to the railway annexes, you can settle in other places. The first priority is to build this place well, and in the future, we will have to renew the treaty with the Spaniards, and these places will be ours sooner or later. Wang Tiehammer finally said.

He didn't say how to renew the treaty with the Spaniards in the future, and Wang Qinian didn't ask, is it nothing more than spending money or fighting! (To be continued......)