On March 7, 1630, the headquarters of the construction site was located somewhere in the interior of Changhua.

"During the eight-month construction period, more than 500 people died in the hard labor camp on your side, with an average of two lives per day!" Tao Donglai looked at the list of accident records of the Changhua project, and couldn't help but sigh with emotion: "If your mortality rate is placed on Tian Du's side, I'm afraid that all of our executive committee members in charge of industry will have to be dismissed because of this!"

Qiao Zhiya shook his head lightly and said, "Mr. Tao, the situation is different, you can't compare the numbers so simply. Tian Du has a strict management system, operating procedures, and medical insurance, but we don't have anything here. Most of the road from Changhua to Shilu is in the field, and the most dangerous and tiring work is also handed over to these laborers, and we have no extra medicine and food to ensure their physical condition, and the limited resources can only be used on our own people as much as possible. You can take a look at the casualties of the naturalized people since the start of construction, and so far there are only a dozen people in total, at least the loss of the naturalized people is still acceptable. ”

Tao Donglai said: "How many people are still arranged to work the construction site now?"

"One thousand two hundred and eighty-three. Qiao Zhiya immediately reported an accurate number: "The number of people in the hard labor camp will be counted every day and reported to me, and this number is the result of the statistics at the end of work last night. ”

Tao Donglai was about to speak, when a naturalized cadre hurriedly walked in and said: "Report to the chief, there was an accident on the construction site, two hard laborers were stoned, and the construction site has been temporarily suspended, please instruct the chief!"

Tao Donglai and Qiao Zhiya glanced at each other, this is really what they say. Tao Donglai took the initiative to stand up and said, "Since something happened, let's go over and take a look!"

The place where the accident occurred is not too far from the site headquarters, more than a mile away, and it is only a few minutes' walk away. When Tao Donglai and Qiao Zhiya arrived at the accident site, they had been separated by a squad of militia soldiers. It was Anxi, who was temporarily transferred as a technician to deal with the accident at the scene, and when he saw the two coming, he just shook his head helplessly and said: "No way, two were injured, one was dead, and the other was also disabled." ”

The accident occurred on a not-so-high slope through which the track line from Changhua to Shilu was about to pass, so the construction team dug a gap about six meters wide in the middle of the slope. However, because the slope walls on both sides of the gap did not have time to be further cured, a loose stone fell from the top of the slope today, and the two laborers who were working on the road below were unlucky, one was hit on the top of his head and hung on the spot, and the other was smashed to the thigh, and now he is still lying on the ground groaning loudly.

Tao Dong came to see the scene, and there was nothing to blame Anxi. Although the construction should be carried out after the hazards on the site should be eliminated before the construction can be continued, the construction schedule for the road is very tight, and if the slopes on both sides of the road are dealt with first according to the standard procedure, the entire progress of the project may be delayed by three to five days. Anzai's choice to continue building the road while dealing with the slopes on both sides is also for the sake of the construction period.

"Mr. Tao, this has to be dealt with quickly, otherwise it will be a delay in putting it here. Qiao Zhiya saw that Tao Donglai did not express his position quickly, so he reminded in a low voice.

Tao Dong came back to his senses and nodded, "Okay, let's deal with it the way you normally." ”

Qiao Zhiya immediately ordered: "Come on, carry the dead and the wounded away." Coach Anxi, send someone to check if there is any loosening at the top of the slope, and if there is no problem, you will resume work!"

Several laborers quickly carried away the dead and the wounded who were still wailing on stretchers, while others stepped forward to cover the bloodstains at the accident site with floating soil. The overseers shouted at the nearly 100 slaves who were squatting on the sidelines and quickly got up and let them return to the construction site to start working.

Tao Donglai didn't ask what would happen to the two hard laborers who were carried away, and in such a deserted place, he could probably only find a random place to dig a pit and bury the dead. As for the man with a broken leg, it is estimated that it is even worse, and the medical staff can at most tie a splint to his leg, but for such a hard labor that cannot go to work due to injury, half of the food supply will be deducted, and whether this guy has the life to survive until the day when the bones grow back can only be relied on luck.

"This kind of thing happens once or twice a day. Qiao Zhiya said with a wry smile: "These laborers are not professional construction workers, and they don't have much sense of self-protection on the construction site, even if a foreman warns them, it won't play much role." Moreover, many of them were South Vietnamese prisoners of war, and they probably couldn't even understand what we were saying, so we specially recruited a group of naturalized people of Annamite descent to be foremen here and direct them to work. ”

The vast majority of the hard labor on this construction site was sent to the Haihan by the Annam Imperial Court in the name of mortgaging war debts, these southerners could not speak Chinese, and their blood was closer to the native people in the Malay area, so it was difficult to have a sense of identity and belonging to the Haihan, and there was not much value for the Executive Committee.

These people can only get the most basic necessities of survival in the hard labor camps, and there is no definite sentence, and the default is to work until the end of death, and the foremen from the executive committee to the grassroots level almost always regard them as consumables. Although Tao Donglai had questioned Qiao Zhiya before, his starting point was to regard these people as the property of Haihan, rather than caring about their lives. If this could be done in exchange for exponential speed, the Executive Committee would probably be happy to absorb more of this super-cheap labor.

Although this practice is not very humane, the time-travelers also know very well that they did not come to this time and space to do charity, but to conquer the world, and the oppression and killing of the weak will inevitably run through the history of the gradual expansion of Haihan, which is an absolutely unavoidable reality. Even if the casualties in the hard labor camps were to double as they are now, the Executive Committee would at most investigate the management negligence and slow down the rate of hard labor wear and tear as much as possible, but it would never question the rationality of this approach, because the establishment of the hard labor camps was itself a decision made by the Executive Committee in the first place.

A few days ago, Tao Donglai submitted a new transaction plan to the Portuguese representative Thomas, and Haihan's shopping list included the independent item of "labor". At that time, Thomas also asked Tao Donglai what kind of labor was needed, and Tao Donglai's answer was very simple - as long as the limbs were sound and could have the ability to work as a normal person. As for the price of individual labour, it can be further negotiated depending on the quantity and quality that Portugal can provide.

Thomas was not an honest man, and as soon as he heard what Tao Donglai said, he already understood -- the Haihan people were going to buy slaves in large quantities! This was really the right person, and the time when the Portuguese began to trade slaves was almost equal to the time when they opened up transoceanic routes on the sea.

As early as 1441, a Portuguese expedition led by Antau Gonsalves captured several black Africans off the coast of Mauritania and brought them back to Lisbon to sell as slaves, which was probably the earliest recorded beginning of the slave trade in Portugal. In the second half of the 15th century, the Portuguese trafficked a large number of black slaves from West Africa back to work as laborers, and also sold them to work in sugar cane plantations on the Atlantic islands such as the Madegar Islands, the Canary Islands, and the Cape Verde Islands.

A century later, the Portuguese slave trade shifted to the Americas, and the island of São Tomé, located in the Gulf of Guinea, became the main slave transit point at that time, from here thousands of black slaves to the Americas every year. It was not until 1576 that the Portuguese established a new, more convenient transshipment base in the Gulf of Luanda, that the island of São Tomé gradually lost its usefulness.

Naturally, the Portuguese did not forget to bring this traditional business to Asia, but because there were no large colonies in the Far East, and there were not many labor-intensive industries such as plantations, the demand for black slaves was very limited. Although Thomas had black slave attendants with him, the Portuguese were unaware that they could sell the property to the Haihans.

It wasn't until Tao Donglai took the initiative to mention this matter on behalf of Haihan that Thomas realized that he had never realized that Haihan's need for labor was so urgent. He only knew that the Haihan had embarked on an extremely large project on the west side of Qiongzhou Island, so much so that almost all of Sanya's engineers and slaves from the slaves were stolen, but from the demands made by the Haihan, it was clear that the existing labor force was not enough to meet their engineering needs, so that they had to find ways to obtain more cheap labor from other means, such as buying directly from the Portuguese.

Tao Donglai even hinted at him on the spot that he could consider exchanging weapons for labor, which was definitely a worthy of serious consideration for Portugal. After all, the cost of capturing slaves in Africa is extremely low, and it is certainly much more cost-effective than buying weapons for the Haihan people with real money. Thomas then sent a message to Malacca, entrusting the Goan colony on the Indian Peninsula to collect a batch of black slaves and transport them to Sanya, which was at least much faster than the capture of a batch from Africa.

Of course, even if it was from Goa, it would take about half a year for the first batch of slaves to arrive, so until then, all kinds of critical labor on the various construction sites in Haihan still had to rely on the labor force of the hard labor camps. Although the loss rate due to various accidents is quite high, as Qiao Zhiya said before, at least the casualty rate of naturalized citizens is at a relatively low level, which is one of the indicators that the Executive Committee values more.

Within a week of the accident, four more slaves were killed on various construction sites along the Changhua-Shirok transportation line. One of them died of illness, one was killed by the militia while trying to escape, and the remaining two were killed by a serious work-related injury - their bodies were found on the river beach two days later.

In mid-March, Tao Donglai left Changhua Port and returned to Shengli Port. There is still half a month to go through the third anniversary, and this has become one of the main festivals that are regularly celebrated every year in the area under the rule of Haihan, and the executive committee has a lot of preparations to be arranged in advance, and Tao Donglai must also return to his post to preside over the overall situation.

In addition, the key leaders of the various foreign missions return to Victory Port during this time to carry out the annual debriefing mission. The main members of the executive committee will basically not go out during this period, and will stay in Shengli Port to participate in the discussion of various plans for the next year.

However, before the anniversary celebrations, the steam engine operators and maintenance personnel who had kept the navy looking forward to the stars and the moon were finally in place, and the "Majesty" announced the dawn of the era of steam warships with a loud whistle one morning -- more than two centuries before the world's first steam-assisted warship, the "Napoleon" built by the French in 1849.

When the chimney of the "Majesty" sailed away from the military port wharf with soot smoke, many people on the civilian wharf on the other side of the strait looked at it with a straight eye -- why could this big war ship still sail on the sea even though it had not raised its sails? And the black smoke that was constantly spewing out from this ship, could it be that it was on fire?

During the "Majesty" sailing out of Victory Harbor, Tom Wang always had a faint smile on his face. As one of the main forces driving the Steam Warship Project, Tom Wang enjoyed this hard-won pleasure very much. Another sister ship of the same class, the "Weifeng" warship, will also officially join the navy in the first half of the year. The two new warships, which represent the highest level of combat capability of the militia navy, will be stationed at Shengli Harbor and the newly completed South Port of Hong Kong Island respectively, and will become the respective flagships of the two fleets in the waters of Sanya and the Pearl River Estuary.

Of course, this is not always good news in terms of shipbuilding, and because the cost of building this new type of warship is too high, the Executive Committee has ordered the construction of a third steam-assisted warship to be suspended. This third ship was supposed to be allocated to the navy stationed in Annam, but because the civil war in Annam had ended, the Executive Committee felt that it seemed a bit of a waste to permanently station such a powerful force in the Indochina Peninsula, and several ports in the south had just begun construction, and even if they were built this year, they would only be stationed in the north, where war would not break out, and it would not actually play a big role.