As the Executive Committee had predicted, the civil war in Vietnam had led to the suspension of production of large areas of salt in the war zone. After a few months of interruption in the supply of salt in the south, northern Vietnam has fallen into a salt shortage for a certain period of time, and the price of salt in the market has skyrocketed, and there is no market for it, and even with the money, it is no longer possible to buy salt through normal channels.

Under such circumstances, the 1,000 catties of refined salt transported by Heitu Port immediately became a sought-after commodity, and the other party heard that these salts could be exchanged for only grain, so they agreed to the conditions offered by Heitu Port without even paying the price. The Red River Delta east of Hanoi is a land of abundant rice production, and the price of grain is extremely low, and the local FOB price is even only one-third of the grain price in Yazhou, which is about the level of less than two taels of silver per thousand catties, compared with the price of refined salt in the Vietnamese market, which has soared to more than 400 taels per thousand catties, it is already as much as 200 times different!

So the 1,000 catties of refined salt transported by the Black Soil Port to test the market were exchanged for more than 100,000 catties of rice very smoothly. However, since the port of Heitu did not anticipate this situation, it only went to one ship to make a transaction, and when the time came, it was not possible to bring back so much rice at one time, so it had to complete the transaction in two parts. Immediately after completing this transaction, the management committee of Heitu Port sent an urgent telegram to the base camp, canceling the original request for food support and applying for all this part of the transportation capacity to be replaced with salt.

Of course, this kind of profiteering trade cannot continue for a long time, and the Vietnamese government will definitely open up new salt farms to supply the needs of the people, so the Black Soil Port plans to seize this limited time to do a few more illegal salt transactions with the Vietnamese, and open an opening first, even if Vietnam's salt supply recovers, the Black Earth Port can also continue to profit from it by further reducing prices.

Gu Kai, director of the Black Earth Port Management Committee, even claimed in a telegram that as long as the production capacity of the base camp is sufficient, it is entirely possible to control the salt market in North Vietnam at this time. At the same time, Gu Kai also built a base camp and sent caravans to the South Vietnam region on his own, because according to what is known now, the salt farms concentrated in the war zones of Ha Tinh, Quang Tri, South Quang Binh, Hue and Quang Nam account for more than seventy percent of their domestic salt production.

As long as the window for trade is opened, there will be channels that can be used for the next arms export plan to Vietnam. For the military conflict between North and South Vietnam that will continue for several years, the Executive Committee has always regarded it as a good opportunity to expand its own strength, and it has long planned how to make good use of this situation. The sale of arms and the absorption of Vietnam's population and wealth will be the main theme of the Cross-Crossing Group's policy towards Vietnam in the coming years. However, before these visions can be realized, the Executive Committee will first have to find a way to meet the current trading demand and supply the Vietnamese market with large quantities of salt.

According to the current self-salt production, the salt demand in the Vietnamese market is completely bottomless, and even if the production capacity of the salt factory commune is fully filled, it is estimated that it will not be able to fill this pit, so the executive committee is anxious to expand the production capacity. Just these three directions of salt import have completely exhausted the local salt production capacity, but at this juncture, the Guangzhou Office sent another telegram requesting to expand the salt transportation capacity in the mainland.

The mainland, which is the fourth export direction, will consume more salt than the first three export directions combined due to its huge potential market. Even if it is only in the two provinces of Fuguang and Guangzhou, the salt needed is not enough for the small salt farm commune. And now the "Fu Ruifeng" side has sent people to the two provinces and state capitals to explore the sales channels, if a qiē shun lì, then the two provinces of the private salt sales network is fully rolled out, it is estimated that it will be the end of this year and the beginning of next year.

In the face of huge market demand, but because of the lack of production capacity, it is impossible to eat in one bite, this sweet trouble is simply a kind of torment for the executive committee. On September 10, the Executive Committee had to convene a special discussion meeting to bring together the heads of relevant units to study how to expand the production capacity of the salt works as much as possible.

At the beginning of the meeting, Anxi, the leader of the Yanchang Commune, introduced the current production situation: "At present, there are 665 members in the Yanchang Commune, of which about 65% are young and able-bodied, which is basically enough in terms of the current production scale. As we all know, most of the salt farms are salt pans and salt ponds, which occupy more than eighty percent of the working area of the entire salt farm, and the actual development area of the salt field only accounts for a little more than half of the entire planning area, and there is still a large amount of usable area that has not been put into use. ”

"In addition, most of the current seawater irrigation operations still rely on wind energy, animal energy and even manpower, and the work efficiency is very limited. I have already made five or six reports on this subject, and I hope that the Executive Committee will pay enough attention to it!"

Tao Donglai coughed dryly and said: "Comrade Anxi, everyone has read your report and attaches great importance to it, but there have been no distribution of steam power equipment to the Yanchang Commune, and there are some objective reasons for this. Our previous steel production capacity was insufficient, and in order to expand our production capacity, almost all of the steam-powered equipment we built was invested in expanding reproduction. Roger, tell me about that. ”

Roger and Shi Diwen were both senior mechanical mechanics before the crossing, and are currently working as supervisors in the machining department. Shi Diwen was mainly responsible for the development of ordnance, while Roger had been engaged in the manufacture of steam-powered machinery.

Roger shrugged his shoulders and said in Mandarin, which he had already mastered, "Just like Mr. Tao said, we have mastered the technology of making steam engines, but the limited raw materials limit our production speed. Now it takes us five days to build a twenty horsepower steam engine, and if we have to, we can build three of them at the same time, but the problem is that we can't keep up with the ...... steel production."

Liu Xingli raised his hand and interjected: "Let me make a mistake, the bottleneck of steel production is not our production level or production process, but fuel! Without enough coal and coke, we will not be able to smelt a large amount of steel, and I believe everyone knows this very well." As long as the Black Earth Port and Shipping Department can ensure sufficient fuel supply, the smelter can also ensure that there is enough steel to supply the manufacturing sector. ”

Seeing that Yue Zhiyun was about to come out to clear his name, this topic seemed to be getting farther and farther, Tao Donglai quickly ended this rambling controversy: "The theme of today's discussion is to expand the production capacity of salt farms, and all the responsible persons should pay attention to their own remarks, and don't go off topic and become a habit!"

Bai Kesi said: "I think so, since we need to expand the production capacity of the salt works now, we might as well temporarily maintain a tilt towards the salt works in terms of policies and material supply, such as the steam engines and cement that have been produced recently, and the new immigrants who have arrived in Hong Kong can be given priority to the salt works commune." ”

No one raised any objections to Bai Kesi's construction. Everyone is very clear about the current external environment, salt can be said to be the lowest technical threshold and production cost of industrial output, and has a huge consumer market. Although the export price of salt is only 100 yuan per ton, which is very cheap compared with other industrial products, no matter how low the price is, it cannot withstand the large quantity, and one day it can reach thousands of tons per month, and the income is quite considerable. Moreover, the biggest difference between salt and other industrial products is that salt is a rigid necessity, and the price will not affect its actual demand in the market, which cannot be compared with other products. At present, there is a huge demand for salt both internally and externally, and it is only natural that the Executive Committee should give priority to the needs of the Salt Farm Commune.

However, Anzay did not seem to be satisfied with such an arrangement, he shook his head and said, "I'm afraid this is not enough. ”

Tao Donglai was stunned and said, "How do you say this?"

"Let's start by calculating the theoretical output that the Yanpan Commune can achieve in the future. Anxi stood up and walked directly to the whiteboard in front of the conference room, picked up a marker and began to write, explaining as he wrote: "The area where Yanchang Commune is located is a mountain col, so the actual developable area is very limited, and we knew very well at the beginning of the planning that the usable area here is only about 100 hectares. ”

"According to our current production capacity, the annual output per hectare is about 145 tons, which is very low compared to the production of Hainan salt farms in the future, about a quarter. Even if we use a large number of machinery and equipment to increase work efficiency through various technological transformations, but limited to the objective level of science and technology and management, it is probably the limit to be able to reach two-thirds of the output of later generations, that is, about 40 tons per hectare per year, so calculated, the annual output of the Yanchang Commune is about 4,000 tons, and it will not exceed 5,000 tons. ”

Anzay put down the marker and turned to the crowd: "This output should be enough to supply the needs of internal industrial production plus the salt consumption of the residents of the entire Hainan Island, but if it is necessary to export it to the two national level markets on a large scale at the same time, I am afraid there is still a big gap." ”

Tao Donglai already understood what he meant, nodded and said, "Do you want to say that we should start planning a new salt field now?"