Walking across the drawbridge and stepping into the base, the two shopkeepers were surprised to find that the houses built inside the wall were all neatly organized, and even the drainage ditches under the eaves were horizontal and vertical, as if they were cut by a knife. The roads are clean and tidy, and there is no such chaotic scene as in Yazhou City, let alone livestock manure that may appear everywhere. Although the place is not large, it seems to be very orderly. The spaces between the houses retain some coconut trees, so that the space in the base is not lacking in green accents. In addition to the natural fragrance of plants and trees, there is no smell of domestic garbage in Yazhou City.

The two shopkeepers were shocked, but also felt that although the environment here was not bad, most of the houses seemed a little smaller, and they didn't know why these wealthy Haihan people were willing to live in such a place. From this point of view, their views are very consistent with Luo Shengdong, the general manager of the water village, and Luo Shengdong also thinks that with the material and financial resources of the Haihan people, instead of building some comfortable courtyards, they live in this kind of collective dormitory similar to a military camp, which is simply incomprehensible.

At present, except for a few people who are stationed on the "New World" and are responsible for the daily maintenance of the ship's equipment, the vast majority of the people who remain in the port are still living in the prefabricated houses of the No. 1 base. Due to the continuous shortage of manpower in the past few months, there are now only a few limited masonry houses in Base 1, and all of them are specially used and not used for human habitation, such as the canteen kitchen that needs to use open fire, the arsenal of guns and munitions, the computer room that houses the servers of the large database, and the telecommunications center that is in charge of wireless communication in the entire area of Shengli Port Tiandu, etc.

It's not that the crossing is not going to be so hard and simple forever, but since the crossing, there have been more important infrastructure projects than building dormitories, so everyone can only accept this kind of accommodation conditions for migrant workers. However, the Executive Committee plans to wait for the completion and operation of the Tianduhe Hydropower Station and then start to build a number of brick and stone dormitories on the island in the middle of the river next to the hydropower station to solve the housing problem that has plagued the crossing for a long time. The area is adjacent to the hydroelectric power station and the future industrial base on the east bank of the Tiandu River, which is convenient for both electricity and work, and is surrounded by natural rivers, making it easier to build basic fortifications.

Of course, even if a masonry house was built in the future, it would not be the courtyard-style building that the Akito thought they should have. The Ministry of Construction has long had a plan to build dormitory buildings according to the structure of the later buildings, and at that time they will be distributed by individuals or families. As for the construction of truly comfortable housing, the Executive Committee believes that it will not be on the agenda until at least the development of Sanya's "two rivers and one port" area in the future, and then it may be able to really have the energy and resources to build and develop commercial and residential buildings.

Entering the conference room, which was also built by a prefabricated house, the two shopkeepers found that the house was originally not made of stone or wood, but of extremely thin boards, and they were even more impressed by the craftsmanship of these Haihan people.

After Tao Donglai warmly invited the two guests to sit down, he asked, "The weather is a little hot today, do you want to have a cold drink to relieve the heat?"

Shopkeeper Zhang exclaimed: "There is ice here and now?"

Tao Donglai said with a smile: "We have our own ice-making method, and ice is available all year round. ”

Shopkeeper Li was also shocked and said, "Then I want to see it." ”

Both of them have been in Yazhou for a long time, and they have never heard of any local households that have ice available at this time, not to mention that Tao Dong's "ice-making method" can make ice all year round. Shopkeeper Li knew that there were some wealthy families in Guangzhou who would use saltpeter to make ice, but Yazhou did not produce saltpeter, so no one used this method to make ice. Could it be that these Haihan people have been purchasing saltpeter in large quantities in Yazhou just to make ice cubes to drink in the summer? But the Haihan people even live in such a "simple" place and eat so extravagantly, which seems to be unreasonable.

Naturally, the traversers would not use the saltpeter they had worked so hard to procure to make ice, which was a valuable raw material for making gunpowder. As for the method of ice making, of course, it comes from several large commercial freezers purchased before the crossing. There are four freezers with a capacity of more than 800 litres alone, which are mainly used for the storage of fresh food at the two sites. In addition, there are several small freezers, which are used for scientific research needs in agriculture, metallurgy, chemical and other departments.

The two shopkeepers watched dumbfounded as Tao Donglai picked up a small black box and said a few words, and then after a while, someone actually brought in a few bowls of mung bean soup and a small bucket of ice cubes.

"Please take care of yourself, both of you. Tao Donglai made a gesture of please, motioning for the two of them to put ice cubes in the mung bean soup by themselves.

The two of them saw that the bucket containing the ice and the clamp used to hold the ice cubes were bright and could reflect the human figure, and the thoughts that flashed in their hearts were the same: "I said that this Haihan people don't want to be extravagant, but they turned out to be blind, and even the utensils for holding ice cubes are clearly made of stainless steel!"

The ice cubes in the ice bucket are all half an inch square, the same size and shape, and the two shopkeepers know at a glance that this is indeed an ice cube specially made for cold drinks. The shopkeeper Li of "Fu Ruifeng" hesitated for a long time, but still asked: "Could it be that you purchased a large amount of saltpeter in order to make ice cubes in the heat?"

Tao Donglai and Schneider were stunned for a moment, and then laughed. Tao Donglai waved his hand and said: "We have a special method for making ice, but we don't use saltpeter to make it. This ice cube is not for ourselves to make cold drinks, but today the two of us came from afar, so we will take it out by the way to entertain the guests. ”

The two shopkeepers ate a bowl of chilled mung bean soup, and immediately refreshed their whole bodies, and felt that the fatigue along the way had also decreased a lot, and immediately turned to the topic. The two of them each took out the bill of goods this time and handed it to Tao Shi and the others.

The contents of this manifest are mainly the cash that has not been settled in the last transaction, as well as some of the goods used to offset the price according to the requirements of the Cliff Office, mainly coal coke, saltpeter, sulfur, ropes, etc.

Schneider noticed that some of the goods had changed from the first transaction price, so he asked: "I remember that the price of coal last time was eight cents of silver per 100 catties, how long has it been since it has risen to two cents of silver? Could it be that the coal shipped by the two of you this time is better than the last time?"

Shopkeeper Zhang waved his hand again and again: "It's not that the two of us intend to raise prices, but the price of coal on the market has indeed risen a lot." ”

Shopkeeper Li continued: "Most of the coal in Yazhou comes from Danzhou and Qiongzhou, and when the supply was sufficient in the past, it was indeed the price of 100 catties and 8 cents of silver, but recently it is said that a large number of people were levied in the north, and there was not enough manpower to mine coal, so the price skyrocketed." ”

"Why did you suddenly levy a large number of people? Could it be that there is some kind of war?" Tao Donglai was very keenly aware of the unusual smell in it.

"It's not the rebellion of Sichuan and Guizhou, the imperial court has been fighting for six years and has not eliminated the rebel party, and now the war is said to have burned to the Guangxi political department, Guilin Mansion gave the imperial court a fold, asking the imperial court to organize reinforcements. After a holy decree, the entire Liangguang was busy, even the Qiongzhou Mansion was no exception, and the people who were requisitioned and issued were to be sent to Guilin Mansion to be responsible for the transportation of baggage. The more well-informed shopkeeper Li casually introduced the changes in the times that he knew.

The rebellion broke out in Sichuan and Guizhou in the first year of the Apocalypse, and the cause was that the two great Tusi Gao Chongming and An Bangyan tried to establish the Yi regime in the local area, so they rebelled against the Ming court. This battle lasted for more than ten years in history, affecting the four provinces of Sichuan, Guizhou, Yunnan and Guizhou, with a total of more than one million casualties on both sides, and countless property losses, which greatly accelerated the collapse of the domestic situation at the end of the Ming Dynasty.

Now that this civil war has entered its sixth year, although the front-line battlefield is far away on the mainland, it still inevitably has an indirect impact on the distant small city of the South China Sea, and the momentum of this influence has spread to the crossing group. Although the price of coal per 100 catties has risen to two coins of silver, what Tao Shi and the others thought of was the impact that the coal supply would have on the production of the group.

Schneider immediately asked, "What will happen to Yazhou if there is no coal from the north?"

The shopkeeper said with a bitter face: "Then everyone can only spend their days burning firewood." However, the adults in your cliff office were quite prescient, and bought a lot of coal in advance, and made a kind of briquette called 'honeycomb coal', which is very resistant to burning. Looking at the storage of a lot of such briquettes in the Cliff Office, I guess I won't be bothered by this in the near future. ”

He Xi went to the big database at this time to check some historical materials, otherwise he could have told the frustrated shopkeeper Zhang, this was not the prescience of the Cliff Office, it was purely something that Zhang Guang made up on a whim.

Shopkeeper Li added: "Yazhou is short of coal, so it can only be shipped from Guangzhou, and the price is afraid that it will double." If you still need to purchase a large amount of coal and coke in the near future, I am afraid you will have to find a way to find a way elsewhere. ”

Tao Donglai and Schneider glanced at each other, both of them were in their hearts, and it seemed that the development plan of Hongji Port was really rushing to put ducks on the shelves, and it had to be carried out in advance. Now the coal in Yazhou has risen to two cents of silver per 100 catties, that is, almost four taels of silver a ton, and the shopkeeper Li said that the coal shipped from Guangzhou may have to double the price, even if the price of eight to ten taels of silver a ton, for the monthly coal demand of more than 300 tons of crossing the group, the expenditure that may be used in this procurement project is not a small amount. If this coal shortage situation lasts for a long time, then the crossing group will have to spend tens of thousands of taels of silver just on buying coal in a year, so that the cost of mining a coal mine itself can be relatively small.