On February 7, 1688, the heavy rain stopped.

He Yuan threw off his entourage, took his secretary and a guard, and went to the Bac Ninh District Archives to inquire about some hydrometeorological data about the Fei River basin - I am ashamed, although this river flows through two major areas, but it is worth it so far, most of the investigation and exploration work is still done in the Bac Ninh area, so there is nothing wrong with checking the information here, provided that you have to get a permit first.

The information about the river in the archives is very detailed, and the Bac Ninh Regional Administration has done a lot of work to tame this wild river. A wealth of information reveals where water conservancy projects should be carried out and where irrigated farmland should be developed. Ho Yuan paid the staff of the archives to help transcribe a copy and send it to the Hue District Administration for study and use by officials from the local authorities.

Of course, he also asked through the staff of the archives where the people who compiled and even obtained the data in the field were located, and said that he would hire them to work in Hue area at a large cost. I have to say that Ho Yuan's idea is a good idea, because most of the expeditions organized in Bac Ninh have been disbanded, and the personnel are scattered all over the world, some have returned home to cultivate the land, some have gone further north to explore the gold mines, and some have even gone to become sailors.

After finishing their work in the archives, He Yuan and his entourage took the rail carriage of the Bac Ninh Street Car Company to the hotel. As the carriage passed by the newly completed branch of Sun Chun Duong South Store in Bac Ninh, a typical celebration of the opening of a shop was underway: a troupe that looked like it had been invited from the south was setting up the stage, and some idle people (mostly elderly and children) were attracted to the stage, and they gathered around the stage, laughing and waiting patiently.

He Yuan also got out of the carriage and blended into the crowd, watching all this with interest. Across the street is a workshop that processes all kinds of wood products, and seeing that there is a play today, the boss also suspended his work and came with a few apprentices. He Yuan talked with them and learned that this boss originally worked in the Hue area, when he was a worker in a timber processing factory, and because of the hard work day and night, his arms were almost exhausted by the big thick saw, and he often had to rest for a whole day or even longer. This made it almost impossible to continue working, so he was soon fired by his boss and came to Bac Ninh County with the money, and with the help of his relatives, he took out a loan to buy a batch of machines, all of which were woodworking machines with shafting that could be connected to the central power system, and opened such a wood products processing factory.

This boss's business is undoubtedly successful. With the help of steam power, his workload was greatly reduced, and he was able to have more energy to process and manufacture some less laborious wood products, and with the added effect of Bac Ninh's policy guidance, her workshop's products were quickly sold throughout the region and became very profitable. Soon, he not only paid off the loans of the then unrestructured Brazilian Rural Finance Cooperative, but also expanded his production and recruited a few cheap apprentices at the age of sixteen or seventeen, and his business became more and more prosperous. It is said that he now plans to buy the land of a poorly run grain and oil factory next door, and then buy a small 20-horsepower steam engine (of course, this requires a series of complicated procedures, but it is worth it), and he will be self-sufficient, and no longer have to spend rent to rent power from the government's central power workshop. This saves a lot of rent, but it also saves a lot of time (sometimes you have to queue up for rent), which often means that more goods can be produced.

He Yuan appreciated the boss's courage very much. It has only been two years since they repaid their loans, and they want to borrow money from the Public Savings Bank to buy land, buy steam engines, and expand factories, and this kind of entrepreneurial spirit is indeed worth encouraging. Considering that he originally worked in Hue, this can't help but make people feel a little regretful, is the development environment of Hue's manufacturing industry so bad? Is it a policy reason or a market factor?

However, in recent years, there has been a wave of purchases of steam engines to promote the mechanization of production in various parts of the East Coast. In particular, in the grassland and duck lake basins on the east coast of the traditional industrial areas, it is conservatively estimated that more than 1,000 steam engines of various types have been purchased by private individuals and put into industrial production, creating extremely huge economic benefits.

He Yuan had also read some materials and learned that the total horsepower of the more than 1,000 steam engines had exceeded 60,000 horses, which alleviated the countless daily labor of the workers. In some small textile workshops, for example, the benefits of mechanized production are not only increased production efficiency, but also greatly reduced the monotonous movements of workers who bend over their backs and are constantly unhygienic, which naturally improves the health of the body.

Although the development of Bac Ninh is not as good as that of the south, the industrial area seems to be self-contained, with a fixed market, raw materials and capital, and skilled personnel can be hired from outside, so the economy is developing relatively rapidly - at least the capital Bac Ninh district is doing well, although many people blame it at the expense of industry elsewhere - the steam engine has also begun to gradually become popular, and slowly into various small private enterprises.

The officials of the Bureau of Syphilis Statistical Investigation must have had a headache with the proliferation of steam engines, because they simply did not have so many people to manage them, and they could not keep track of the condition of every steam engine. You know, all of the above is basically on the control list of the country's export goods, and they have the responsibility to closely supervise it so as not to cause undue losses to the country.

However, when the social and economic development has reached this point, they really have no intention of doing so, unless the state approves them to greatly increase their manpower, or reduce their tasks in other aspects, such as detecting cults, spy networks, large-scale organized crime, anti-state elements, and so on, but how is this possible?

Of course, some people also pointed out that the development of steam engine technology in European countries is not slow, and the degree of practicality is getting higher and higher. In particular, the ones produced in England have begun to be widely used in industrial production, and some of the early steam engine models on the east coast have little technical advantage, so it is time to lift the export control ban and suppress the sales of steam engines in England at the same time, and at the same time, you can also make a lot of money, so why not?

It is said that the Executive Committee is already formally considering this issue and is inclined to agree to the lifting of export controls on some steam engines. For example, the last time they approved the export of steam engines to France, they received very good feedback from the foreign affairs and trade departments, and the large increase in the export of goods to France made the domestic industrial production on the east coast more prosperous, more jobs, and thicker industrial profits, which in turn further promoted the development of domestic industry.

It is believed that the next step for the government will be to fully lift the export restrictions on the mid-range and low-end steam engines in the overseas colonies, so as to improve the production efficiency of the colonies in an all-round way, and at the same time increase the development of domestic steam engine-related industries. It is expected that the two major development team jurisdictions of New China and Far East Denglai and South will benefit the most, and it will inevitably make some steam engine technology flow into the neighboring Qing, Shun and Republic of China regions, but at the moment when the British have traveled thousands of miles to transport steam engines produced in Birmingham to the Qing Dynasty, it is meaningless to restrict low-end models, and can only be cocooned and let the market be occupied by others in vain.

"The popularity of the steam engine really helped. Jobs such as port coaling, iron-making, irrigation, and machining, which used to be the most devastating to our workers, have now been eliminated, and even non-national laborers have left these industries to look for work on construction sites. Perhaps thinking that He Yuan's dress and speech and demeanor were different, the boss was a little careful in his speech, so he continued: "In short, our country is different from before. The same is true for Bac Ninh, where every day chimneys are erected and there is the sound of tinkling machining. You see, every afternoon at this time, when industrial production is at its most active, the whole city is filled with intoxicating soot, which is very refreshing. ”

He Yuan was stunned at first when he heard this, and then smiled bitterly. Indeed, in the eyes of many people, the more chimneys there are, the more they represent civilization, the more they represent progress, and the more they represent high income. Compared to them, Hue's predominantly agricultural (plantation, logging and fishing) economy is indeed slightly behind. Although in the winter and spring, some people come from the south to travel and recuperate, and the state-owned Dongfang Hotel Group has also invested a lot of money there, but it always seems that the foundation of the industrial zone is not as solid and stable as that of the industrial zone. However, this is also a matter of no choice, each region has its own regional development model, and it is not advisable to blindly copy it in many cases. In fact, the future of Hue lies in sticking to the previous path and focusing on the development of agriculture, forestry, animal husbandry and fishery. Now that the Dutch West India Company had basically decided to double its investment, and some other businessmen were also about to make a move, it would not be wise to change course at this time. If you really want to talk about it, in fact, it is better to spend more money to design some new machines, improve the production efficiency of post-deep processing, and at the same time increase the effective use of by-products, which is what he should do.

The stage was set up quickly. He Yuan asked people to find a place and sat down comfortably to watch. With the rapid development of the East Coast's economy, the progress of the cultural industry in recent years is also obvious to all. There are more than 1,000 large and small performance groups registered in China, and the number of employees is tens of thousands, which shows the strong domestic demand for this piece of consumption.

Moreover, He Yuan even heard that many performance groups have also gone abroad to perform in places including New Courland and Portuguese Brazil. Although many of the scripts have a deep Chinese cultural background, they may not be able to understand them, but they are still extremely popular everywhere they go, which not only reflects their superb professionalism, but also reflects the strength of the East Coast Republic of China, because the national strength is not strong, this level of cultural export is actually difficult to achieve - in this regard, the Kingdom of France in Europe is an excellent example.

Therefore, whether the national strength is strong or not is really the foundation of everything!

The strength of the country is really the foundation of everything!