Although a lot of things have happened in Borneo in the past few months, and the Intelligence Department has been busy with it, but as the supreme ruler of the empire, Emperor Lin Zhe did not put much thought into this matter, and when he personally paid attention to this matter, that is, last year, he called Ge Dongbing, the director of the Intelligence Department, to ask one or two.

After that, I'm sorry, Lin Zhe almost forgot about it.

It wasn't until after the establishment of the Langang Great Unified Republic that Lin Zhe remembered that there was such a mess in Borneo, but he didn't pay too much attention to it, but after reading the briefing of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, he just forgot about it.

Such a big empire, there are many affairs, and he Lin Zhe does not have three heads and six arms, it is impossible to pay attention to everything, and it is impossible to deal with everything personally, otherwise, why does the empire have so many officials.

Besides, the development strategy of the empire in recent years is very clear, and those military and political dignitaries also know it, that is, the empire needs a peaceful and stable development environment, and wars, diplomatic conflicts and other things can be avoided if they can be avoided, unless others provoke them, otherwise don't look for trouble.

I didn't see that the empire had already controlled the New Eastern Province and the Aleutian sea area in 1869, and with the strength of the imperial navy and army, it was completely possible to easily land in Alaska, but the empire held back and didn't care about Alaska.

Why?

It was not to avoid a violent conflict with the British, which would affect the development of the industrial economy within the empire.

By the 1870s, there was a relatively unified understanding among the upper echelons of the empire that industrial development took precedence. Everything else has to be in the back row.

This is true for Alaska, and it is also true for Burma. The Central Asian question was no exception, and the empire only occasionally protested through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. But it is unlikely that the Empire would make any real move, to interfere with the British or the Russians, etc.

The same is true for Borneo affairs, and it is naturally okay for the Intelligence Department to sneak up on the ground, but don't expect the Empire to openly support the Langang State or send troops to intervene in the internal war in the Dutch East Indies.

After entering 1871, the empire still kept a low profile in international affairs, and did not express strong opinions on international affairs in Asia, and as for the question of Europe, South America, and Africa, the empire did not see it. Maintain an attitude that it is not about yourself.

As long as these regions or countries do not directly endanger the interests of the Empire, then the Empire is generally pretending to be invisible.

Relatively speaking, Lin Zhe should pay more attention to the development of the empire, and the people of other countries are concerned about Lin Zhe's, even if the contract between Prussia and King Wilhelm I of the Kingdom of Prussia was crowned emperor in Paris, France, officially proclaiming the unification of Germany and establishing the German Empire, this did not attract much attention from Lin Zhe.

In Paris, it was time for the Franco-Prussian war to officially end. Lin Zhe is inspecting Dangtu next door to Nanjing!

Since the empire decided to develop the Ma'anshan iron ore mine on a large scale in Dangtu and establish the Dangtu Industrial Zone, the development of the area has been quite rapid.

Its core enterprises are the Ma'anshan Iron and Steel Plant and the Ma'anshan Iron Mine under the Jiangnan Mining Company, while the weapons company has also invested in the construction of an arsenal in the local industrial zone. It is an artillery arsenal mainly for army field artillery and small and medium-caliber shipborne artillery.

In the past ten years, the Royal Arms Company has successively invested in a number of new arsenals, and merged and reorganized its subordinate businesses. At present, it has four major arsenals: Shanghai Arsenal (Linde Arsenal), Nanjing Arsenal, Dangtu Arsenal and Guangzhou Arsenal.

Among them, the Shanghai Arsenal is the largest comprehensive arsenal in China, with the ability to mass-produce various weapons. Including large-caliber naval artillery, large-caliber coastal defense artillery, large-caliber field artillery for the army, and siege artillery. At the same time, it is also the largest production base of small arms in China, and the factory produces the 1864 Linde rifle. It accounts for about 30 percent of the total domestic production of this rifle.

And then there are the newly developed torpedoes, mines and other various naval weapons.

The R&D department of the Royal Arms Corporation, which was spun off from the Shanghai Arsenal, is the most powerful weapons R&D institution in China.

The Nanjing Arsenal and Guangzhou Arsenal are mainly engaged in the production of light weapons and ammunition, and of course they also have a small amount of artillery production capacity, but the production capacity is not large.

The Dangtu Arsenal is a specialized artillery production plant of the Royal Arms Company, focusing on small-caliber artillery, mainly field artillery of the army and small-caliber ships of the navy.

In addition to Jiangnan Mining Company and Dangtu Arsenal, there are many other heavy industrial enterprises in Dangtu Industrial Zone.

After ten years of development, Dangtu Industrial Zone has become the second largest heavy industry base in China after Shanghai, with steel and machinery manufacturing as the core industries, supplemented by other industries to form a huge industrial base.

What was once a small fishing village along the river has developed into a large industrial city with a population of more than 200,000.

At present, the Dangtu Industrial Zone plans to further expand its scale, and they want to include the entire Dangtu County in the industrial development plan.

For this reason, Anhui Province has been prepared in advance, and the county government and other administrative agencies of Dangtu County have successively moved from the old county seat to the new urban area in the industrial zone next door.

The local government of Dangtu County is pushing for Dangtu County to become an independent city, even a municipality directly under the central government.

There were not many administrative districts at the level of 'city' in the empire, and basically there were only two municipalities directly under the central government that could be called cities.

The Ming Dynasty of the imperial provinces and counties was a continuation of the Ming and Qing dynasties, that is, provinces, prefectures, prefectures, and counties, as for the city, it was a special administrative name, and at present there were only two places, Shanghai and Nanjing, and even Guangzhou and Tianjin were not able to obtain the name of the city.

As the second largest heavy industry city in China, Dangtu County, which has the Dangtu Industrial Zone, is even stronger than Shanghai in some fields, such as steel, but is still a county-level city, which is undoubtedly not in line with local development needs.

In the past few years, the Organization Department has been more cautious when arranging officials for Tu County, why?

Because Dangtu County is the second largest heavy industry city in China. The total economic output ranks among the top 10 in the major cities in China, and the industrial output value alone. However, it is the second in the country, more than Tianjin and Guangzhou.

But what makes it very embarrassing is that. Dangtu is just a county-level city!

According to the personnel practice of other prefectures and counties in China, the personnel transfer of county-level chief officials is generally nominated by the organization office of the state government and the organization department of the provincial government, and then formally appointed by the subordinate Taoist, and the Taoist is usually in charge of several state capitals and some provincial governments in the administrative sequence of the empire, assisting the governor and the political envoy in handling affairs (somewhat similar to the deputy governor in later generations), that is, usually the appointment power of the county order is above the deputy provincial official.

However, this situation is not applicable in Dangtu, when the county order of Tu County. Usually it is nominated by the Organization Department of Anhui Province and then approved by the Organization Department of the Cabinet, or simply the Organization Department parachutes a county order.

And the people who can become the county magistrates of Tu County are all from a lot of backgrounds, and their promotion paths are generally different from ordinary county magistrates.

For example, the previous county magistrate of Dangtu County was the deputy director of the Anhui Provincial Department of Industry and Commerce, and this appointment was still promoted in the eyes of outsiders.

This person has been a county magistrate in Dangtu County for two years. At the beginning of this year, he was directly transferred to Shandong as a Taoist, that is to say, he spent the position of Dangtu County Commander at the level of prefect or provincial government director. Then he was promoted to the rank of Taoist.

The current Dangtu County Decree is even more exaggerated, because the Organization Department of the Cabinet directly parachuted in, and was previously the deputy director of the Department of Mining under the Ministry of Industry and Commerce.

The deputy director of the general central agency is placed in the place. That's at least a Taoist, but now it's condescending to be a county magistrate. This is simply unheard of.

It can be seen from the personnel arrangements of the Organization Department for Dangtu County that the administrative level of Dangtu County has not been far off. Even if it is not a municipality directly under the central government at that time, it is estimated that it will be a county directly under the central government of Anhui Province, and in the words of later generations, it will be a vice-ministerial-level city.

Its administrative status is about the same as that of the provincial capitals.

Because the relationship between the current Taiping Mansion and Dangtu County is relatively awkward, although Dangtu County belongs to the Taiping Mansion, but in fact, Dangtu County is based on the development of Dangtu Industrial Zone, and the vast Taiping Mansion has nothing to do with it, and the affairs of Dangtu Industrial Zone are usually directly under the jurisdiction of Anhui Province, and even sometimes the central departments are directly issued documents to Dangtu Industrial Zone.

As a result, although the Dangtu Industrial Zone is under the rule of the Taiping Mansion, the Taiping Mansion has actually lost its jurisdiction over the place, why?

Because the officials of a county order are actually bigger than the prefect of Taiping Mansion!

Listening to the following officials of Dangtu County carefully stating in front of him about the necessity of Dangtu County becoming a municipality directly under the central government, Lin Zhe drifted his mind out of the window.

He is located in the office building of Dangtu County, and most of the domestic government offices are traditional courtyards, the county government of Dangtu County does not want to be a county government at all, this office building is a three-story brick and stone building, and it is a very typical Baroque style, and the administrative building in Shanghai is more similar, plus several buildings next door, this composition of the core administrative office area is more luxurious than most provincial capitals.

However, this is not to say that the officials of Dangtu County are greedy for enjoyment, but because people are not short of money in Dangtu County, just one county, but it has the second largest heavy industrial zone in the country, and in addition to contributing a large amount of tax revenue to the central government every year, the local tax revenue that Tu County itself can retain is also very large.

In 1871, when the county budget of Tu County was as high as more than 3.3 million yuan, the financial budgets of several other counties belonging to Taiping Province were not even a fraction of it, and the huge Anhui Province, its annual provincial budget was only more than 10 million!

Relying on a large number of enterprises in the industrial zone, the local finances of Dangtu County are very sufficient, and even support other prefectures and counties every year.

Looking out the window, you can see a large road that is obviously newly built, this road is not a dusty dirt road, and it is also a very popular road in major cities in China today, and it is also the main road of contemporary cities, that is, cinder road.

It's a relatively rare cement road!

Just this cement road, you can know that this Dangtu County is wealthy!

In the sixties and seventies, cement was still relatively expensive, and not every city had enough money to pave cement roads.

The cement industry in the empire began to develop long ago, and there are now large and small cement factories all over the country. Of course, there are also people who call cement ash nowadays. A cement plant is called an ash plant, but it's all the same thing.

However, although cement developed early. However, limited by the current overall technical level of the cement industry, the output is relatively limited, and the demand for cement in the empire is relatively large, especially in the national defense industry and high-end construction industry.

The national defense industry mainly refers to the construction needs of forts, docks, fortifications, etc., and the consumption of cement in this regard is relatively large.

High-end construction industry, generally refers to factories, some factories have higher requirements for foundations and buildings, ordinary brick and wood structures are not good, must be concrete and steel structure buildings. In addition, large-scale infrastructure such as wharves also have a relatively large demand for cement.

Again, there are some private houses, of course, the private houses here are all high-end types, cement is a building material that has little to do with ordinary folk buildings for the time being, and ordinary people can't afford it.

And when Tu County actually spent a huge amount of money to lay cement roads, which shows that the local finance of Dangtu County is not short of money, but also shows that the growth of Dangtu industry in recent years is still relatively fast.

When Tu's development was even better, Lin Zhe expected. You must know that Dangtu, as an inland city, although there is a Ma'anshan iron mine, it can be said that there are no commendable resources.

However, when the successive county commanders of Tu County seized the opportunity to develop the Ma'anshan Iron Mine, they were the power to promote the establishment of the Dangtu Industrial Zone. This is the second official industrial zone in China, and then led to the settlement of Jiangnan Mining Company and Dangtu Arsenal, using these two core enterprises. It has attracted a large number of other small and medium-sized enterprises around steel and machinery to invest and set up.

Moreover, over the years. Dangtu Industrial Zone has always been firmly committed to the development of heavy industry, using steel and machinery as the core industry. It did not follow the trend of developing light industries such as cotton spinning and other light industries that seemed to be relatively easy to develop.

In the past ten years, although the empire's cotton spinning industry has developed very rapidly stimulated by preferential policies and a huge domestic market, in fact, the threshold of this industry is very low, and anyone can invest in it, not only the big cities along the coast, but also many cities in the interior regard the cotton spinning industry as a shortcut to the development of industry.

As a result, the domestic cotton spinning industry and other light industries are blooming everywhere, and the development is fast, more, which means that the competition is great, and it is difficult to form an absolute light industry center city.

But heavy industry is different, whether it is steel or machinery, there is a very high threshold, not only the need for mineral resources and capital, but also this kind of industry is very important to the surrounding facilities.

Those machinery industries, especially small and medium-sized enterprises, they will never go to a barren and unmature city to invest and establish any machinery factories and the like.

Generally speaking, it is difficult for the machinery industry to appear any large-scale machinery factories all at once, basically from small workshops, small factories to develop, starting from hardware parts is the usual choice of many people, and these small and medium-sized machinery factories are usually dependent on those large enterprises to live.

In the early years, those small and medium-sized machinery enterprises in the Dangtu Industrial Zone basically developed by supporting the Jiangnan Mining Company and the Royal Arms Company.

It is only today that the heavy industry base in China, second only to Shanghai, has gradually been formed.

Other cities in China do not have this advantage, because their development time is too slow, for example, Tianjin and Shenyang, the former has too many ambitions, it wants to be Shanghai in the north, heavy industry wants, light industry it also wants, although it is considered to be a good development, but in the field of heavy industry is always a little worse than Dangtu.

Although Shenyang is rich in resources, the development time is too short to impact the industrial status of other cities in China in a short period of time, not to mention that the railways in Shenyang have not yet been built, and the steel products cannot be transported.

Dangtu County, it is by taking advantage of historical opportunities, and then always focusing on the steel and machinery industries, that it has been able to develop to this point.

And this situation is worth Lin Zhe's attention!

Although the recent industrial development in China seems to be rapid, it seems to be a little impatient, and in many places there is a bit of a one-sided pursuit of short-term development results. (To be continued.) )