"Hey, by the way, why did the Executive Committee suddenly decide to speed up the construction of the new Chinese colony?" Shi Qinjie, who had been excited for a long time, suddenly remembered this question at this moment, and asked: "It's so sudden, it seems to be in a hurry." ”

"It's a bit complicated, and I've heard it happen." Liu Ang said: "That's the case, you know, didn't we ask the Portuguese to increase the efforts to transport Ming people to the east coast before?" No, this year, the Portuguese made a big fleet all of a sudden, and transported 2,500 Ming people and 500 Koreans and Japanese in one go, good guys, the total price is 1.1 million yuan! ”

"1.1 million ......" Shi Qinjie was also a little dizzy when he heard this number, he didn't know exactly what the financial revenue of the East Coast Republic was last year, but he knew that there was definitely no 1.1 million, and it should be a cut behind.

Seeing Shi Qinjie's somewhat stunned appearance, Liu Ang smiled understandingly, then took out a copy of the "Pravda" internal reference from his pocket, flipped to a piece of article, and then said: "This is the draft of the "Pravda" to Xu Xin, the plenipotentiary representative of our country in Bordeaux, in the second half of this year. In this article, Xu Xin believes that thanks to years of business development and increasingly extensive contacts, the sales of textiles in France, especially in some southern provinces, are now showing a good growth trend, and it is expected that the total sales volume of France (with Bordeaux as the sales center) and Tuscany (with Florence as the sales center) will exceed 400,000 horses in 1640. Among them, white cotton cloth accounted for ninety percent, and dyed cloth and calico accounted for one percent for the first time in history. We earn a dollar per piece of white cotton. Dyeed cloth earns three dollars per piece. The operating profit reached 500,000 yuan. Even after removing some freight, machine depreciation, and the cost of French customs and patrol naval officials, the net profit is still maintained at more than 450,000 yuan. ”

"Look at this article again, the newsletter of the Ministry of Commerce and Industry." Liu Ang turned the internal reference to the other side and continued: "The Ministry of Industry and Commerce optimistically predicts that the military industry will emerge in 1640 and will become another pole of the country's economic growth. A total of 10 warships and a large number of army equipment were sold throughout the year, and the net profit exceeded 350,000 yuan. By the way, there were also some cotton, woolen and leather goods sold to the Ottoman Empire. The total profit is about 200,000 yuan. Coupled with the profits from the export of textiles, building materials, hardware products, honeycomb coal, refined coal and other commodities to La Plata, Peru, Chalcas, New Spain and Portuguese Angola, the total profit of industrial exports will reach about 1.3 million yuan for the whole year. However, this figure is only theoretical, and in fact many accounts have not been recovered, for example, the Ottomans only paid half of the cost of building the ship. And the rest of the ship's construction costs will not be paid in cash, but will be replaced by a large amount of minerals, wool, livestock, and slaves. I heard from a colleague in the Ministry of Finance that in order to pay for the huge immigration costs of the Portuguese, the Ministry of Finance urgently lent 50,000 yuan to the Brazilians at the rate of two cents a year, and only then did they get through the difficulties. At present, the construction of the domestic economy, the maintenance of the army, and the salaries of government administrators are all supported by domestic taxes and the trade income of Colonia City. ”

"This ......," Shi Qinjie was a little surprised, "doesn't this mean that we have been busy for a year." Are you still working for the Portuguese? ”

"So to speak." Liu Ang nodded heavily, and then said, "You don't know what to do. For this year's trip to East Asia alone, the Portuguese will make more than 10 percent of the government's annual revenue. This had become an extremely important annual income for them, and over the years, the commercial act of transporting the Orientals to the East Coast had become a great business involving many merchants and nobles, and countless people had become rich as a result. The extent of this chain of extension is unimaginable, from the nobles and big merchants in Portugal, to the Viceroy of Brazil and Goa, to some famous captains, the Society of Jesus in Macau, and many agents in the Ming Kingdom, everyone lies on this golden rice bowl to eat, and they all eat with their mouths full of oil. ”

"It's ridiculous!" Hearing that the people on the east coast were desperately developing industry and exporting goods but feeding such a group of things, even the honest man Shi Qinjie was a little angry, and he quickly thought of the connection between this incident and the current New China Colony: "So, the Executive Committee decided to invest heavily in the New China Colony, and even did not hesitate to develop the shipbuilding industry here, just so that we can fly directly to the Ming Dynasty as soon as possible and transport people ourselves?" ”

"There's something in there." Liu Ang thought for a while and said, "You also know that one of the major costs of shipbuilding is ship materials. At present, all the timber used to build our warships is imported from Brazil, and even if it is a second-class merchant ship, the wood used is high-quality hardwood imported from Paraguay, which has led to high costs. Now, since Madagascar is so rich in high-quality timber and is ternullius, it's only natural that the Executive Committee would have the idea here. Therefore, it is easy to understand the location of wood processing plants, wood drying kilns and shipyards here. ”

"On the other hand, the Executive Committee has also raised objections to the high freight rate of 400 yuan per Ming person that has been between the Portuguese and the Portuguese for many years, and has already formally negotiated with the Portuguese in this regard." Liu Ang continued, "The Executive Committee believes that the high price of 400 yuan per Ming person is a special product of the special period of the year, which is no longer applicable, and strongly urges the Portuguese to reduce the cost of immigration. The Portuguese are not very reluctant to do this, after all, this price change affects the interests of quite a few people. However, the Executive Committee later gave them a suggestion that they should ship the Ming to the colony of New China, which would be equivalent to shortening the voyage of the Portuguese by half. And if they move fast enough, they can set off every October when the northeast monsoon just starts, and it only takes a month or two to reach New Huaxia Bay. Then they will return to Malacca with the current, and if all goes well, the northeast monsoon will probably not have passed by this time, and they will be able to carry people to New China Bay again. It is equivalent to doing business twice a year, and the efficiency has been fully doubled compared to before. After much consideration, the Portuguese finally decided to accept our new way of trading. ”

"So, what's the new trading price?" Shi Qinjie asked.

"300 yuan per person." Liu Ang sighed and said, "This is already the best price that the Executive Committee can strive for." After all, transporting a slave from West Africa to St. Augustine can often sell for more than a hundred dollars. 300 yuan to buy a Ming person, it can no longer be regarded as very expensive. Moreover, the Portuguese were not afraid of us asking for help from the Dutch or the Spaniards, so the final price was actually the price that the two sides finally compromised with each other. ”

"I see." Shi Qinjie exhaled and said: "If we want to get rid of this extremely heavy financial burden, if we want to avoid being exploited by the Portuguese, we can only find a way to sail directly to Daming by ourselves." And the basis of all this is to rapidly develop the new Chinese colony as a stable rear for direct shipping to the Ming Dynasty in the future. ”

"Not bad." Liu Ang agreed, "Captain Shi, your New Huaxia Colony can be said to have hit a big luck this time and caught up with a good time. ”

……

Liu Ang didn't stay in Xinhua Fort for too long. In the afternoon of the next day, he and the returning "Chaoyong" and "Abbot" left Xinhuaxia Bay and sailed towards Hezhong Port.

At this time, Shi Qinjie, who got the exact news, also burst out with infinite energy. With a strong sense of responsibility and mission, he quickly convened a meeting of all the principal responsible persons of the new Chinese colony to focus on studying the direction and focus of construction in the coming period.

First of all, the first key construction target is naturally the city wall of Xinhuabao and the cement kiln outside the city. If the walls are not completed, the inhabitants of the colony will have no sense of security. The construction of cement kilns is also of great significance, because a large number of construction projects that will follow in the future will not use a large amount of cement.

The second is the reclamation of farmland near the Coconut Tree Creek Reservoir and the construction of an irrigation network. After all, it is actually very uneconomical to transport grain from South Africa to this side, especially now that the domestic sea capacity is still very tight. It was also unsafe, meaning that the colonies were not self-sufficient, and if the sea lines of communication were cut off, there was a high risk of chaos.

The third thing is naturally to increase investment in logging camps, and strive to significantly increase timber production to meet the growing domestic demand for high-quality marine timber and high-end furniture timber. Of course, the construction of wood drying kilns and wood processing plants is also urgent, after all, so many trees have been cut down, and the processing capacity must also keep up. In addition to these two, the construction of the shipyard with the highest "technical content" in the entire colony is even more important, and in Shi Qinjie's plan, this shipbuilding industry can become one of the pillar industries in the new China region in the future.

In addition to the above, the importance of other projects and projects has suddenly decreased a lot. For example, coconut picking and deep processing, the construction of cement permanent wharves, the construction of highways in the port, the construction of houses in the city, etc., have no longer become Shi Qinjie's primary focus. Maybe in the future, when there are enough people to spare, he will assign some people to follow up on these projects, but not now.

Once the ideas are aligned, the next thing is easy to do. Several of the main persons in charge here are doers, and everyone has no nonsense, and after the meeting, they each found someone to do the project they were in charge of. (To be continued......)