Zheng Lin was not angry when he hit such a soft nail in front of Schneider, the real mission of his visit to Sanya this time was not to come to Xingshi to ask for guilt, but in essence, to beg Haihan to start construction as soon as possible and start the construction of the port. Now that the entire trading system in southern Annam had come to a standstill with the destruction of several major seaports, the imperial court was now in dire need of restoring the situation in the south to its pre-war level in order to be able to reap the benefits of foreign trade, and in order to achieve this goal, it was necessary to involve the Haihan people as much as possible.

Zheng Lin has been dealing with the Haihan people for much longer than ordinary Annan officials, and his long stay in Heitu Port has also made him have a deeper understanding of the strength of Haihan, and he is very aware of the gap between the country's engineering construction level and Haihan, if the development of the four southern ports is not led by Haihan, Annan's own strength alone may need to pay several times longer to build a new commercial port. The topic of the negotiations was not the ownership of the four southern ports, but when the implementation of the development plan promised by Haihan before the war would begin.

"Mr. Shi is right, he was losing his words just now. Zheng Lin didn't argue with the other party on this issue, and quickly brought the topic back to business: "Now that the southern shape has been decided, can you have a final plan for the construction of the commercial port? ”

Tom Wang and Schneider glanced at each other, and there was a trace of surprise in their hearts. At the end of last year, in order to be able to invite the Haihan militia to send troops to help, the Annan Imperial Court had to reluctantly agree to the lion's opening of the Haihan Executive Committee, and in addition to the astronomical compensation for military expenses, it also had to take out almost four of the best natural ports on the southern coastline in one go and hand them over to the Haihan as long-term concessions -- if we ignore the small rent, in fact, these places are almost equivalent to giving away for nothing.

Although the Annan court finally agreed to all the requests made by Hai Hanfang, if it was said that it was willingly agreed, I am afraid that no fool would believe it. Moreover, after the Battle of Hue, the Hai Han militia sheltered a group of remnants of the Nguyen clan and former South Vietnamese officials from Hue to leave Hue, a measure that also made the Annam court a little dissatisfied with the attempt to eradicate the roots. After the Hue campaign in March, relations between the two sides had entered a relatively cold period, during which the two sides only maintained normal commercial and trade exchanges, while political and military exchanges were at a standstill.

During this delicate period of relationship between the two sides, and coincided with the fact that the Shilu development project needed to occupy a large amount of construction resources, the Executive Committee naturally chose to suspend the plan for the southern port and devote its main energy to the construction of the infrastructure project from Changhua to Shiroku. The Executive Committee even imagined that in a year and a half, when Haihan restarted the project of the four southern ports, the Annam Imperial Court would deliberately make the stumbling blocks uncooperative, and even deny Haihan's concession power in these places.

If such an unplanned situation arises at that time, the two sides may have to negotiate a little bit more, and most of the executive committee members regard the handling of bilateral relations as one of the necessary external conditions for the smooth progress of the four-port project in the south. But even people with big brains didn't expect that the Annan Imperial Court would change its attitude so quickly, and actually sent someone to the door to take the initiative to urge this matter.

Wang Tom responded: "Special Envoy Zheng, the development of the southern commercial port involves many aspects, and the preparations that need to be made are also very complicated. ”

Zheng Lin said: "The two of you, don't hide it, the meaning of the imperial court is to hope that you can start construction as soon as possible." Where we need to help and cooperate, the two of them will report to the next meeting as appropriate and cooperate as much as possible. ”

Schneider is such a shrewd person, seeing Zheng Lin's posture so low, he has already guessed a little bit of the truth of the matter, smiled and asked tentatively: "Your country's economic situation in recent months is not too ideal, right?"

Without waiting for Zheng Lin to answer, Schneider took the initiative to say: "More than ninety percent of the Ming merchants who were doing maritime trade business in South Vietnam have evacuated the local area, and the Portuguese have also taken the initiative to withdraw from South Vietnam in order not to offend us. I'm afraid that the officials in the court will be very dissatisfied with the land that North Vietnam has worked so hard to recover for so long, but has not received the expected benefits, right?"

Zheng Lin arched his hand and said: "Mr. Shi is really powerful, although he is not in the middle, it is not far away! At the beginning, the princes of the court supported the king of the Qing capital, even if the whole country was in debt, they had to crusade against the small court of South Vietnam, and in fact, the sea trade income of the south was also included, as long as the previous scale of sea trade was maintained, the military expenditure gap of the Southern Expedition could be filled in only one or two years, and it was worth taking this risk. However, after the war, the southern commercial port was completely destroyed, and the maritime trade declined, which was far from what was expected, and the princes of the court put all the responsibility for this matter on the head of the king of Qingdu, who was in charge of the main battle. ”

"The treasury has no money, and of course the king of Qingdu can't build a new port, so this matter can only be pushed on our heads. Schneider didn't wait for Zheng Lin to finish speaking, and then took over the conversation: "So this is the general situation of the matter, right?"

Although Schneider's words were aggressive, Zheng Lin was worthy of being a person who had lived in Heitu Port for a year, and had already learned the means of going around in circles with the Haihan people, so he avoided answering this: "If you lead the construction of the port, you can be guaranteed both financially and technically, and China can provide a certain number of laborers to assist you in the construction." ”

Schneider asked, "What is a certain number?"

"Not less than 3,000 people, depending on the needs of the project. Zheng Lin immediately responded.

Schneider nodded and said, "Then how to solve the salary, food and lodging of these laborers?"

Zheng Lin said: "We are only responsible for sending people, and the labor costs are naturally borne by you." After the completion of the project, these workers can become Haihan nationality according to their own wishes. ”

"Sounds good!" Tom sighed as he touched his chin.

At a time when the vast majority of people thought that the development of the four southern ports had to be postponed until next year, the new conditions offered by the Annan people gave Haihan a new chance, and judging from Zheng Lin's description, the conditions offered this time were full of sincerity and indeed worthy of serious consideration.

Of course, Schneider was not naïve enough to think that the other party would only give and not ask for anything in return, so he took the initiative to ask: "Then what are the exchange conditions you want?"

"We need more shipyards and sea vessels. Zheng Lin also did not hide his intentions, and directly stated his own conditions: "Your side will build no less than three shipyards for our country within next year, and the 400 ships delivered to us by the end of next year shall not be less than 20." ”

Twenty 400 ships is not a big deal, and if it really needs to, the Ministry of Shipping can pull out a cargo fleet of this size by now - of course, there will be no new ships among them. If Annan can afford to pay in cash, it will not be a big deal to sell 20 seagoing ships one after another next year, and anyway, the "exploration-class" civilian merchant ships on the side of the Shengli Port Shipyard have already begun to be launched, and their sailing performance and cargo loading capacity are much better than those used in the past. The Ministry of Shipping's ship turnover this year and next year is a sure thing, and the old ships that have been eliminated just need to find a less picky eater to deal with, and Annan is undoubtedly an excellent target.

However, Zheng Lin's request for the construction of three new shipyards is not a matter for Schneider and Wang Tom to make decisions directly, but must be discussed at the meeting. At present, Annan and Haihan have a cooperative shipyard located in Heitu Port, but its shipbuilding capacity is still relatively limited, and it can only build 200 seagoing ships at present. Moreover, the ships built by this shipyard had to be supplied not only to the Annam Imperial Court, but also to meet the needs of Heitu Port and the other two concession ports, so it was natural for the Annam Imperial Court to be dissatisfied with its supply capacity, and it was reasonable that it would ask for more shipyards to be built.

In the past two years, Haihan has helped Thang Long Fu fight several battles, and the Annam military should also be more deeply aware of its own shortcomings, in addition to ordnance and weapons, mobility is also a great shortcoming. If it weren't for the fact that the Haihan fleet had undertaken the cargo mission from the Red River Delta to the front line of the war, the North Vietnamese army, which was at a passive disadvantage at that time, would probably have been overwhelmed by its backward logistics supply system without fighting. The successful use of warships to carry out sabotage warfare behind enemy lines on several occasions made the North Vietnamese military realize the importance of surface combat forces.

On the civilian side, the gap in maritime capacity is even greater, and after conquering Hoi An and Hue, the Hai Han militia took all the captured ships with them when they evacuated, regardless of size, which caused the southern coastal area to fall into a situation where there were almost no ships available. If you count on the shipyard of Heitu Port, I don't know what year and month it will take to restore the prosperity of southern maritime trade.

"The ship's affairs can be discussed, but the new shipyard, I'm afraid this matter is a bit difficult to handle......" Schneider shook his head and began to play official: "Special Envoy Zheng, this shipyard is not something that can be built, I Haihan has been here for three years, and there is only one shipyard on Qiongzhou Island, and your country will build three new shipyards as soon as you open your mouth, which is inevitably a little embarrassing." ”

Zheng Lin came to Sanya for the first time, and he had never visited the Shengli Port Shipyard, so he was stunned for a moment and said: "You have so many cargo ships and warships, and they are all built by one shipyard? Dare to ask how many slipways your shipyard has, and how many big ships can be built every year?"

Schneider couldn't help but secretly regret that he had said the wrong thing, and this should not be used as a reason to shirk. Shengli Port Shipyard now has two large slipways of more than 1,000 tons, more than 10 slipways of 500 tons, 300 tons and smaller ones, not to mention Qiongzhou Island, a shipyard of this size, even in East Asia during this period, I am afraid it is one of the largest shipyards. Of course, the resources consumed by a shipyard of this size are also quite staggering, just for the raw materials processing of raw materials for the wood workshop, the drying room for drying wood, the workshop for manufacturing metal parts, these supporting units as many as a dozen, employing thousands of people.

There are hundreds of professional shipbuilders in the shipyard, most of whom are professional shipwrights hired from various coastal areas with high salaries in the last year. The various tools used here, from the small planing and hammer saws made of stainless steel, to the large hoisting frames required to install keels and masts, are almost all unique to Haihan, and the outside world cannot imitate them at all. As for the design drawings of the various ships built by Haihan, they are even more top-secret information, and those who can access these drawings are naturalized citizens with high loyalty.

It is impossible for Schneider to explain these technical advantages to Zheng Lin, such as the number of slipways, the specific number of shipbuilders per year, these are also projects to be kept secret, Schneider can only reply vaguely: "There is no comment on this matter, special envoy Zheng forgive me!"

Zheng Lin shook his head and said, "Even if Mr. Shi doesn't say it, he can guess a few points." Presumably, the scale of this shipyard in Sanya is far from being comparable to the shipyard in Heitu Port, and Mr. Shi will probably feel unfair when he compares this shipyard with the three shipyards required by my country, right?"

Seeing that Schneider was a little embarrassed, Tom Wang coughed dryly and said, "Then I don't know what kind of scale the shipyard proposed by your country should be?"

"It's very simple, each shipyard only needs to have the capacity to build 400 seagoing vessels individually. Zheng Lin added: "Even if there is only one slipway. ”

Wang Tom said in his heart that you are a layman, it doesn't make much difference whether you have one slipway or two slipways, as long as you master the corresponding shipbuilding technology, it is only a matter of how much it costs to expand to ten slipways.

At that moment, Wang Tom replied quietly: "We can't answer you immediately whether it is okay or not, this matter is according to our procedures, and the final decision can only be made through the collective discussion of the Executive Committee." If Special Envoy Zheng is not in a hurry to go back to resume his life, he might as well stay in Sanya for a few more days. ”

Zheng Lin replied: "I am also planning to disturb for a few days, so it is better to be respectful." I wonder if I can move around during my stay here?"

"Rest assured, we will arrange a special visit for you, and we will also have a special reception staff to accompany you throughout the journey, while ensuring your personal safety. Tom immediately replied.

If Zheng Lin understands these words, he should understand that Wang Tom means something - we will arrange for you to go where you should go, and you don't have to worry about the places you shouldn't go, we will always arrange people to monitor you, so you'd better not do any tricks, and remember that your life is always under our control.