"The qiē you see is not a spell, but the power of science!"

At this time, what Li Nai could think of was this sentence that he would often hear Schneider say after coming to Victory Port. Of course, this is not a spell, and Li Nai is not an uneducated village man, although he does not understand more than half of the explanations given to him by the Haihan people, but this does not prevent him from judging the credibility of the Haihan people's statements. He believed that the awe-inspiring scenes he saw when he came to Victory Port were indeed the results of the Haihan people relying on "science", and they were things that could be seen and touched, not mystical spells.

What is science? Science is the way that the Haihan people understand things and change the world, and this is the explanation given by Tao Donglai, the leader of the Haihan people. And unfortunately, this method does not seem to have been mastered by the Akito.

Although Foshan also has a very developed iron-smelting industry, as far as Li Nai has seen, it is certain that the technical level of the two places is not at the same level at all, and the only thing that Foshan is proud of is probably that there are more blacksmiths, and the population of the entire Shengli Port together is not as many as the blacksmiths in Foshan. But just having a lot of people is useless, for example, the mechanism in front of you, which can reciprocate on its own and is extremely powerful, can replace the non-stop work of at least hundreds of people. Li Nai felt that even if there were 100,000 blacksmiths in Foshan, he might not be able to build such an intricately designed mechanical monster.

Li Nai noticed that the ore transported into the concentrator was a kind of square trolley running on two parallel rails. This cart is pulled by oxen, and behind the two oxen there is often a long string of carts full of ore. After unloading the ore, the trolley will go around to the parallel track on the other side, pulling back in the direction in which the empty cart was coming and going.

Li Nai pointed to the empty minecart and asked Schneider, "Can you go with me and have a look?"

Schneider thought that the executive committee had not said that he would not be allowed to see the mines, so he agreed to his request, so the two followed the ore cart along the railroad tracks to the east. After climbing a gentle slope of 300 meters, a huge pit appeared in front of Li Nai.

The veins of the Tiandu Iron Mine are so shallow that they can be mined in an open-pit manner almost without the need to excavate tunnels, which is similar to the coal mines in Heitu Port. At present, there are more than 400 miners in Tiandu Iron Mine, which can mine about 60 or 70 tons of iron ore every day.

This production efficiency is relatively low, but considering that the mining process is almost entirely manual, and the executive committee does not have a squeezing management of the miners, it is not too outrageous. Of course, this situation will be improved when the coal problem is resolved, and the Executive Committee will set up a special mining bureau to manage the mineral development work, mainly for the Tiandu iron ore mine and the Damao phosphomanganese mine, which is located further inland.

With sufficient coal security, large-scale iron and steel is almost inevitable to start the industrial project, when the current ore production will not be able to meet the production needs, and the introduction of more mechanical power in production will become a necessary means. For example, in the current mining, the ore is transported from the bottom of the pit for loading by means of carrying people on their backs, which is inefficient and extremely important for limited mining manpower. And if mechanical lifting means are adopted, then the current situation of one-third of the labor used for transportation can be changed, and more labor can be put into mining work.

Of course, the current pit also has steam engine-driven machinery, with two 20 hp steam engines taking turns to drive mine pumps. The pumping machine was used to ensure that the groundwater seeping out of the bottom of the pit could be continuously pumped out, because the steam engines currently used were limited in processing accuracy and could operate continuously for only a few hours, so the equipment that needed to work continuously had to have two steam engines to provide power in turn.

When Li Nai listened to Schneider explain the "ambition" of the executive committee for Tiandu Iron Mine, his face turned a little pale. Soon the Haihan people will be able to reach the level of 30,000 jin of iron smelting per day, as long as they continue to expand the scale of production and ensure sufficient coal supply, they are afraid that in the future, they will only have a daily output of 100,000 jin or even hundreds of thousands of catties, just this place of Shengli Port, and the future iron production may be on par with the whole of Guangdong.

With so much iron, how much change can it bring to society, even Li Nai, who is a businessman, does not dare to say anything casually. But one thing is a very clear fact, the military force that can be armed with so much pig iron is probably not an opponent that the weak defenders of Qiongzhou Mansion can resist now!

Of course, so far, Li Nai has not sensed any hostility on the part of the Haihan people towards the Ming Dynasty, on the contrary, they are happy to bring in the population of the Ming Dynasty as hired laborers. Even those Li Miao mountain people who can't read a word, the Haihan people are also eclectic and treat everyone equally. For the local government of the Ming Dynasty, although the Haihan people were not too cooperative, they did not adopt a confrontational attitude, but gradually won over the staff in a softer way, such as the general Luo Shengdong of Shuizhai, and Wei Ping, who is currently in the stage of attitude transformation. It can be seen that the Haihan people did not intend to take the route of military confrontation with the Ming government, and it seems that their armament is more likely to be used for self-preservation.

Regardless of whether these speculations are true or not, Li Nai can only comfort himself with such thoughts for the time being, and don't worry too much about the Haihan people posing a threat to the Ming Dynasty.

Standing high on the edge of the pit, Li Nai can look down on the industrial area that spreads throughout the river valley. On the farthest west bank of the Tiandu River are patches of bamboo and wood houses, which are said to be villages where laborers live, and which the Haihan people call "residential areas". There is a conspicuous barrage on the Tiandu River, which is said to have been built by the Haihan people, and Li Nai did not understand the purpose of the dam, because he really did not understand what Schneider meant by "water energy into electricity".

On the east bank of the Tiandu River, next to the dam, is the No. 2 base inhabited by the Haihan people, and from a high vantage point, the walled wall around the entire base presents a peculiar polygonal shape, enclosing dozens of warehouses and several neat rows of barracks. In addition to the few places I have just visited, there is also a large area of factories to the south that Schneider called a "forbidden area", which is the "outsider" that the executive committee explicitly prohibits outsiders from entering, including Li Nai, of course.

Although he was very helpless, after all, an agreement had been reached in advance, and Li Nai could only abide by Schneider's arrangement. However, Schneider still appropriately revealed some information to him: those forbidden areas were basically military industrial units, specializing in the production of guns and gunpowder and the like.

As soon as Schneider said this, Li Nai felt relieved, these things are technical secrets for both craftsmen and manufacturing units, and it is normal to keep them secret from outsiders. What's more, if the Haihan people want to sell arms to the mainland, if they want to make money for a long time from this business, they must first ensure that the secrets of their manufacturing technology are not leaked. Although "Fu Ruifeng" is a business partner of the Haihan people, the Haihan people are not obligated to let Li Nai know about the advanced technology they have mastered.

Although there are still many places that have not been approved by the Executive Committee, Li Nai believes that it is not difficult to judge the Haihan people's specialization in the field of production just from the places he has seen. As far as what they can produce is concerned, I am afraid that it is difficult for any merchant and craftsman in the entire Ming Dynasty to match it. In the face of such a partner, the biggest advantage of "Fu Ruifeng" is the circulation channels, the firm can not only organize the fleet between Guangzhou and Shengli Port, but also have a wide range of sales channels in the Ming Dynasty, which is also very much needed by the Haihan people, and the various products they produce are for export, this purpose is very obvious, and there is never any disguise.

Li Nai firmly believes that this advantage of his own trading house cannot be caught up with by the Haihan people in a short period of time, even if they have "science" in their hands. Because these sales networks and connections throughout the southeast and even Jiangsu and Zhejiang regions are gradually established by relying on the "Fu Ruifeng" several generations of shopkeepers to spend hundreds of years to gradually establish, many of which are intricate interest relationships, which require a lot of time and energy to maintain, and the newcomers to Haihan people can not have such ability.

As long as the Haihan people need the Ming Dynasty, a commodity sales market, and have always needed to import various raw materials and craftsmen from the Ming Dynasty, they will inevitably need a partner like "Fu Ruifeng". The strength shown by the Haihan people made Li Nai feel very relieved, and he could also purchase some industries here in Shengli Port in the future to further stabilize the cooperative relationship between the two sides.

That night, accompanied by Schneider, Li Nai returned to the station in Victory Port in an ox cart. Not long after returning to the residence, Schneider came to visit again: "Mr. Li, the executive committee has now made a decision on your mention of opening a gambling stall and ** in Shengli Harbor. There's good news and bad news, which are you going to hear first?"

Li Nai was obviously not used to Schneider's way of speaking, so he was stunned for a moment before responding: "Then...... Hear the bad news first, right?"

"The bad news is that before you mention it, the executive committee has relevant regulations, and there must be no places in the form of ** and gambling stalls in the Shengli Port area, and any public ** activities for the purpose of profit are expressly prohibited!"

"So what's the good news?" Li Nai didn't feel depressed by this, but vaguely felt as if something good was about to happen.

"The good news is that the opening of the ** Tiyì has been approved by the Executive Committee......" Schneider said with a smile.