Compared with what happened to Luo Shengdong in Shengli Harbor at the beginning, the executive committee members were already very restrained in the group of people sent by the Yazhou official. With the current scale of the group, it is not difficult to raise such a dozen idlers, and the executive committee also thinks that it is worth spending dozens of taels of silver a month to buy a quiet place, as long as these people do not make trouble in Shengli Port, the executive committee is happy to continue to maintain the current state of peaceful trade with Yazhou.

The small courtyard of the inspection department is only two or three hundred meters away from the wharf, and you can see the situation on the wharf without being discharged from the hospital. After living here for two or three days, there was nothing unaccustomed to except that they were not very free, and after three meals a day, a group of people stood by the fence and watched the busy scene on the dock.

After living in the past few days, Wei Ping has a deeper understanding of what the "rules" mean in the mouth of Haihan. In the place of Victory Port, everyone seems to follow the "rules" that cannot be seen or touched. Wei Ping was most impressed by the militia soldiers standing guard around the courtyard, and the sentries changed their posts every hour, and during the standing guard, they all stood straight and upright in place, without any conversation with each other, and they also ignored some of the instigation of these onlookers in the courtyard.

Of course, Wei Ping could see that these people were all local people and not Haihan people, and many of them were even mountain people of the Li and Miao ethnic groups, but these people all obeyed the "rules" of the Haihan people without exception. He also felt Luo Shengdong's confusion at the beginning, how did the Haihan people train these people to such a point?

Look at these subordinates around him, after eating every day, they either go to sleep or sit by the ditch to fish to pass the time, although there is nothing wrong with such a peaceful life, but Wei Ping feels that such a boring day is unbearable. But he knew that it would be useless for him to protest to the Haihan people now, unless he could think of some effective way to make the Haihan people think that it was better to let him move freely out of the courtyard than to stay in the courtyard. Wei Ping watched the movements of the Haihan people day after day, racking his brains to figure out how to get out of this damn courtyard.

The Yazhou official wants to set up an inspection department in Shengli Port for direct management, which is just a disease of scabies for the crossing group. The current focus of the Executive Committee is not on this small team, and the overseas colonization, which has entered the final stage of preparation, is the core of all the work of the current Crossing Group. （.）

Just two hours after Wei Ping and his party arrived at Victory Harbor, another fleet sailed into Victory Harbor. The shopkeeper Li of "Fu Ruifeng" finally returned from Guangzhou, and arrived at Shengli Port with two 400-material Canton ships bought in Guangzhou for the crossing group, as well as more than 60 shipwrights and sailors and a small number of mechanics who were hired with the ship.

Mr. Li's trip also brought other good news, through the group's new glass stationery in Guangzhou head office has been highly praised, and the market response is also quite good, sent samples are not sold at all, "Fu Ruifeng" only engaged in a large customer internal promotion meeting, it was quickly snatched up. This time, Shopkeeper Li rushed back to Shengli Port, in addition to bringing two big ships that crossed the group to ask for help to express his goodwill, he also specially sent thousands of taels of silver, hoping to order 500 sets of glass stationery at one time, and named to buy the "upgraded version", "advanced version" and "limited edition" that Schneider said before.

In addition, the head office in Guangzhou also expressed a certain interest in the private salt business, but hoped that the crossing group could ensure a stable supply of dìng, no less than 10,000 catties per month. At this time, it is almost impossible for the salt farms on Hainan Island to complete such a production task, but for the salt factory commune, which has set a production target of 1,500 tons this year, this amount is nothing at all. At present, the technical transformation of the salt works is progressing steadily, a large number of cement salt drying ponds have begun to gradually replace the stone troughs used before, and the aqueduct leading to the inland of the salt works has been renovated, and the production efficiency has been several times higher than when Anxi first took over the salt works.

Although the sales of salt are not very remarkable compared to the luxury business of buying and selling thousands of taels of silver, the Executive Committee attaches great importance to this project. The reason is very simple, because salt is a fast-moving consumer goods that has no threshold at all, and it is also a daily necessity that everyone has to buy, and this special product nature makes it much more negotiable in the market than other daily necessities currently produced by the crossing group, and it can even be used as hard currency in a certain way, which is an incomparable advantage of other products.

Shopkeeper Li also said that the Guangzhou head office of "Fu Ruifeng" is still continuing to collect second-hand sea ships in Guangzhou for the crossing group, and will send ships to visit Shengli Port in the near future. At that time, the senior personnel of "Fu Ruifeng" will come forward to contact the crossing group to discuss a long-term and stable business cooperation model.

This good news greatly stimulated the Executive Committee, and the opening of the first maritime trade route beyond the main island would mean that there would be a huge consumer market for the goods produced by the Crossing Group. Compared with this market, the current production capacity of the crossing group is obviously too low, and if you want to shorten the time of original accumulation and dig the first pot of gold for development and growth, what the crossing group needs to do now is to do its best to expand the production capacity. And to achieve this goal, the first thing to do is to solve the biggest energy problem at the moment.

The number of seagoing vessels that can now be used for overseas colonization operations has been reduced from six to eight, and the total tonnage of the fleet has reached about 1,500 tons. After calculation, the Executive Committee concluded that this tonnage was sufficient to load the materials needed for the first voyage, and that some of the cabins could be vacated to carry some local refugees on the east coast of Vietnam to Xingang according to the immigration plan. The conditions were ripe for the development of the Hongji Coal Mine, and the Executive Committee decided not to delay any further, issued a mobilization order, and all departments stopped other affairs in their hands and made every effort to prepare for this overseas colonization operation.

For this operation, the Executive Committee transferred capable personnel from within and set up a "huge" team of 35 people stationed abroad. They will lead a team of 80 recruits and 200 local labourers to carry out a one-year assignment in Newport.

Recruits will automatically receive the rank of sergeant after completing the year's stationing assignments, and all salaries will be doubled according to the original standard for the duration of the station. The remuneration of these local workers is much higher than that of their counterparts who stayed in Victory Harbor, and the overseas allowance alone has exceeded the original salary. At the end of the one-year period, these people will be treated as a three-level worker and will be free to choose whether to stay in Newport or return to Victory Port.

Compared with the recruits, who already have a basic concept of discipline, the recruitment of laborers still encounters a little trouble, and the vast majority of the people are reluctant to leave their homeland to work overseas, and even the high salaries and preferential treatment offered by the executive committee have not played a big role. In the end, the Executive Committee had no choice but to use some semi-coercive measures to recruit some families in the commune by lottery.

In addition, according to Ren Liang's Jianyì, a number of good-looking, honest and obedient prisoners were selected from the labor camp to join the foreign laborers, of course, these people could not obtain the title and treatment of third-class laborers after one year, and all they could get was to regain their freedom after one year. But even so, the labor camp almost broke its head for this precious place.

The Ministry of Shipping painted the sides of the three 400-material ships with paint on the side numbers of the ship, from "Shangyun 01" to "Shangyun 03", while the previously seized Haicang ships and Guangzhou ships still used the previous "Haixun 01" and "Haixun 02" ship numbers. Although both training ships are already equipped with the Type 27 A-6-pounder naval guns newly developed by the military industry, neither the Military Police Department nor the Ministry of Maritime Transport plans to include these ships in the future naval establishment. None of these ships were designed and built to the standards of warships, and it was too reluctant to serve as combat vessels for the navy.

According to the plan of the two departments after the collegiate discussion, the current armament of this batch of ships does not need to be too high, and only needs to reach the Cheng dù of the contemporaneous Chinese-style armed merchant ships. In terms of the level of weapons produced by the Crossing Group, with the same number of guns equipped, these ships can definitely blow up the opponent beyond the range of the opponent. For the sake of the newly arrived 400-pound ships, the military industry department has begun to produce 9-pound and 12-pound naval cannons, but after the cannon is cast, it will have to undergo a long calibration test, and I am afraid that it will not be able to catch up with the time of the first voyage. At present, only a few slightly smaller 6-pounder guns can be installed on these large ships, which can be regarded as having basic maritime defense capabilities.

However, the shortcomings of the shortage of manpower were once again apparent at this time, and it took more than a month for the new battalion to train more than a dozen naturalized civilian soldiers who had mastered the basic operating procedures. But even then, there were far from enough gunners on board. Evenly distributed, there are only two gunners for each gun, and if you really need artillery fire at sea to participate in the battle, I am afraid that the rookie gunners can only command the temporary sailors and shipwrights.

Due to the increase in naval artillery, the demand for gunpowder has also risen significantly. During this time, the chemical department stopped all scientific research and went all out to make black powder. Not only can the guns on the ship be used, but the amount of gunpowder needed to build roads and mines in Xingang is even greater. According to the estimation of the Ministry of Construction, the amount of gunpowder needed in the construction process of Xingang is at least more than one ton, and for the sake of insurance, the Ministry of Chemical Industry directly worked overtime to produce two tons of black powder, which also swept away all the materials such as sulfur and saltpeter in stock.

By mid-July, all preparations were in place and the countdown to the overseas colonization operation was underway.