In the early morning of August 13, Gao Yi went to the grave of old Gao Yi. Eight months later, I set foot on this land again, and the changes in the process are far from being described by the four things that are not people.

Brown is still the same as before, he is far away from the core life circle of Shanghai, so he still treats Gao Yi as he did when he first met.

After chatting with Brown for a few words, Gao Yi left the cemetery from his old place. The wall here has already been built, and a side gate has been opened on the wall, which is just opposite the west gate of the Xiangsheng shipyard opposite. The pontoon bridge over the river has been removed and replaced with a wooden bridge underneath that can cross a dinghy. It seems that the temporary passage between the two gates has now been secured.

Gao Yi came from the light car Jane today, and only brought a taciturn bodyguard Bersinger. They hired a local paddle and leaned directly against the cemetery's newly built small pier.

Although it was still early in the morning, the Xiangsheng shipyard was already boiling over. The shipyard has recently signed a contract with the U.S. government for 10 gunboats for the Philippine coastal defense, so it is working overtime.

Xiangsheng Shipyard, known as Boyd & Co., was founded in 1862 by the Britons Boyd and Nicholson, and later transferred to the Scotsman Grant, and was the earliest shipbuilding enterprise in Shanghai. Before Xiangsheng Shipyard, although there was no shortage of shipbuilding enterprises in Shanghai, such as the Pudong Dockyard Company in 1853, the Pudong Iron Works in 1857, the Shanghai Dockyard Company in 1858, and the Xiang'an Shun Shipyard in 1860, these enterprises could only repair ships and had no shipbuilding capacity.

The Xiangsheng shipyard was merged with the Yesson shipyard in 1900. Since both companies had already been reorganized from the original partnership to a limited company, and the shares of both companies were issued to the public, and many of the shareholders who owned the shares of Xiangsheng Shipyard were also shareholders of Yeson, there was no question of who annexed whom, more precisely, the merger was supposed to be a strong alliance to avoid excessive competition.

After the merger, the two companies used the name of Yeson, called the Yesson Shipyard Company, with a capital of 5.57 million taels. The chairman of the board of directors is an old friend of Gao Yi and one of the two co-chairs of the Scottish Club, Prantis. Therefore, Gaoyi's equipment is generally customized here, in addition to discounts, the machinery and equipment here are also the most advanced in Shanghai, and the quality of workers is also the highest. After all, for decades to come, the shipyard will have a monopoly on China's shipbuilding industry.

It was still early, and Gao Yi and Bersinger came to the dock after going around the shipyard.

The dock of Xiangsheng Shipyard is 200 meters long, 36 meters wide and 8 meters deep, and is covered with hardwood on three sides. The dock door is pulled open by the tugboat outside, the water is released, and the boat is parked or sailed out. This kind of dock door is like a living dock, which can be raised and lowered with the tide. Next to the dock is a huge steam-powered pump, which can drain a dock of water to a trickle in four hours.

At this time, six gunboats under construction were parked on the piers in the dockyard, and the keels, ribs, and beams had been laid, all of which were riveted steel frame structures. Workers are clanging riveting the ship's planks to the ribs with red-hot rivets, and the whole dock is in full swing.

Gao Yi was watching with great interest, and he was already thinking about whether to buy a cruise ship like Rida and de Gray. It wasn't until Li Yongfa's people came over that Gao Yi stopped his reverie.

The equipment to be shipped today has been pre-transported to the dock by the shipyard, and it is something like a cannon barrel. This is a new piece of equipment, and Gao Yi wants to use it to recover ammonia.

Gaoyi needs to use ammonia in the process, because of the small output, the used ammonia is directly discharged into the Huangpu River.

The source of ammonia is the water gas currently used in Shanghai. A small amount of ammonia is produced during the production of water gas, which is collected by the ammonia plant by washing to make concentrated ammonia. However, Shanghai does not use Solvay's alkali plant, and the concentrated ammonia is useless, but can only be treated as toxic waste because of its toxicity. Gao Yi wants to buy ammonia, the factory naturally can't ask for it, the price is almost free, as long as there is a freight. With such a low-cost source of goods, of course, Gaoyi does not need to bother, laborious, energy, and costly to recycle it back and reuse it, and directly discharge it.

However, the design capacity of the new plant is 2,500 tons per year, which means that it will consume 1.4 tons of concentrated ammonia per day. What's more, if you want to drain it, there is not so much ammonia for you to discharge, and the annual output of ammonia in the water gas plant is not enough for this number.

With the ammonia recovery method, since the plant is designed for 24-hour continuous production, in fact, only 200 kilograms of ammonia water is sufficient for circulation, so the condensing tower the size of the gun barrel can fully meet the demand.

******

The new plant is located on the banks of the Yangtze River outside the town of Gaoqiao, and was chosen because it is located downstream and does not pollute the city's water sources – even if the recycling method is adopted, the recovery rate cannot reach 100%, and there will always be ammonia discharged into the water system. It is better to discharge into the mouth of the Yangtze River than into the Huangpu River.

The place where the new factory is located is called Chenjiadunzi, which is a platform slightly higher than the river bank, with the size of six or seven hundred acres. The site was chosen here because of the high terrain here, even if there is a large flood, it will not be flooded; The second is that it is surrounded by water on all sides, and it is exactly the place where a small river flows into the river, and it is blocked by this highland, and the small river forms a water wave, and then divides into two strands around the pier, which looks like a natural moat, completely isolating this place from the land. This kind of place is often a blind spot for the local government, and it is convenient to build factories here with fewer constraints and to do things.

Chenjiadunzi originally lived in forty or fifty families, but after Guangrong Lin bought the land, he moved to the city.

The price of land in the countryside of Shanghai is actually very cheap, similar to that of Suzhou and Hangzhou, which are cities in the south of the Yangtze River, and the average price is four taels of silver. Only the land price will be speculated in places close to the concession, but as long as the road in the concession has not been built, it is generally only 40 or 521 acres. A place like Chenjiadunzi is not in line with the beach, and the land price is naturally four taels of silver.

Guangrong Lin directly opened a sky-high price of fifty taels of silver, on average, each family can get seven or eight hundred taels of silver, the villagers laughed so much that they couldn't close their mouths, where would they object, and the household would be finished in a few days.

In the spirit of not holding officials accountable, Guangrong Lin did not inform the local government that a factory would be built here, but borrowed the names of his subordinates, scattered the land to them, and then directly started construction. In such a remote place, as long as you can pay taxes and grain every year in the future, the magistrate will not care how you get your money. On the contrary, it is the knife and pen officials who are familiar with the place who need to do a good job, but there may be no way to deal with this kind of people, but for a gangster like Er Li, it is not difficult at all, and if he doesn't listen to the greetings, he will be crushed every minute.

Gao Yi and the Li brothers sat under a pergola, shaking their fans and watching the coolies unload their goods from the ship.

"Lao Li, I think the steam crane must be installed in place as soon as possible, how can this shoulder to shoulder. The cooling tower is a stupid guy, it doesn't matter if it's bumped, and it won't work like this when the slightly more delicate equipment comes over. ”

"I've called someone to see it, but the base of the steam crane is not very safe, and the foundation has to be made of iron stakes, and it has to be poured with ash. In this way, ten days and half a month may not be able to accomplish things......"

"Absolutely not, the crane must be in place, today this cooling tower is only a thousand catties to unload so laborious, and then there are thousands of catties of machines, how to carry it then." What if it breaks? It took more than a month to rebuild, but the gains outweighed the losses. It's better to spend half a month and lay a solid foundation. For example, this pier, I think it has to be heightened, otherwise, you have to climb a slope to get up to the pier, how can this be done? Not only should there be a crane, but it is also best to lay a railway track from the dock to the construction site. ”

"Okay," Li Yongfa nodded helplessly, "Mr. Gao's words, we have to listen to them, then build the crane and railroad tracks first, and then build others." He paused and said, "By the way, Mr. Gao, since you want to make the foundation, why don't I take you to see all of this place first, if there is anything to change, we will take this opportunity to change it together." ”

"Okay, let's go and have a look!" Gao Yi snapped and closed the fan in his hand.

It was almost lunch time, and the cooling tower had finally been unloaded onto the dock, where it was being dragged up the slope with logs. Gao Yi and the others did not wait any longer, but got on the boat and started the return journey.

They had a light meal on the boat, and what they talked about was nothing more than the perception of walking down the circle just now, and they talked about the fact that it was not possible to do it like this, and that they should find professionals to do this kind of thing, otherwise they would not have enough time to pounce on it.

After discussion, the completion deadline has also been postponed, and the trial operation was originally scheduled for the end of September, but now it has been extended by a month to the end of October.

In this case, it means that the first payment of 250,000 taels will be delayed by Gao Yi for a month. But he didn't care about this, the money was already a dish in his bowl, so what difference did it make if he got it a month earlier or a month later.

The speed of the barge was only five knots, and it took nearly 30 kilometers from Chenjiadunzi to the Bund, and the barge drove for three and a half hours to arrive.

When he was about to get off the boat, Li Yongfa said: "Mr. Gao, 250,000 taels, when I came out this morning, I had already instructed the shopkeeper to transfer to your account. After you go back, please check if it has arrived. ”

Gao Yi was taken aback when he heard this, although he expected Li Yongfa to pay in advance, but he didn't expect him to pay so comfortably, and the full amount was called. In the original agreement, the 250,000 taels were paid in batches, and after the trial operation, Guangrong Lin paid 50,000 taels to Gao Yi first, and then paid 100,000 taels when the products were shipped out in the first month, and the remaining 100,000 taels were settled within the next three months.

"It takes money to open the factory, and now it is necessary to add cranes, rails, and rebuild the wharf, which will cost at least 30,000 or 50,000 taels of silver. In fact, I don't need the 250,000 taels of silver urgently, just give it to me step by step, why be in such a hurry? ”

"Haha, Mr. Gao doesn't know yet, I have already borrowed money from HSBC yesterday. I thought that 600,000 yuan was borrowed, and 1 million was also borrowed, anyway, I owed people money, so it was better to simply owe a little more, so I borrowed 1.5 million yuan. Not only has Mr. Gao's payment been settled today, but we will also give it 'Xintiandi' tomorrow! ”

Gao Yi almost gasped when he heard this, "In this way, the annual interest will be close to 100,000 taels." Aren't you two worried? ”

"Haha, Mr. Gao, let's not hide it, just the business that we can get started in the sixteenth shop wharf, the income in a year is more than five times the interest, what are we worried about? What's more, there is also the Nanshi Wharf, as well as teahouses and theaters that can make money. This piece of land was given to the surnamed Huang, it was simply a tyrannical thing, he knew what to do, but he was just a subordinater who could only extort money. Guarding such a big plate, only tens of thousands of taels of income every year, it is really a gold mountain to eat. ”

For the two brothers, Gao Yi was so satisfied that he had nothing to say, so he had to give them a thumbs up.