For Haihan, which now launches at least two new 200-ton ships every month on average, shipbuilding technology is no longer the main factor restricting the speed of maritime expansion, and the lack of sailors with maritime experience is the most troublesome problem for the Executive Committee.

Even if the establishment of the militia navy is not counted, just the various cargo ships and fishing boats under the Ministry of Maritime Transport will require nearly 1,000 sailors to ensure normal operation. After the Navy was separated from the militia last year, a large number of skilled hands in the crew establishment of the original Ministry of Shipping were assigned to the Navy, and the shipbuilding direction of the whole year last year was mainly military, and there was a huge gap in the crew establishment of the Ministry of Shipping, so that after the Shengli Port Shipyard began to build civilian ships on a large scale this year, the number of crew members and sailors has begun to be in short supply.

Almost all the people in the southern part of Hainan Island who have experience in sailing to sea have accepted the employment of Haihan and become naturalized citizens, and even some people in Yazhou Shuizhai have left their military status to join Haihan. But even so, the recruitment of sailors in the crew is still a little out of pace.

After Gu Kai came to Hong Kong Island to learn about the local situation, he actually had already moved his mind to recruit people here. Fishermen account for more than seventy percent of the hundreds of local residents, and it should be a natural thing to remove the old and weak, women and children, and select two or three hundred qualified sailors from among them. This number could take three months or more to reach if it relies on the existing immigration introduction system for recruitment. Some time ago, in order to arrest the Jinyi Wei spies, the Li family and the Guangzhou Office jointly set up a stall on the Pearl River Wharf outside the south gate of Guangzhou for a few days to recruit sailors and sailors.

If a group of sailors can be recruited here, it can solve the problem of resettlement of local people after land acquisition, and secondly, it can also alleviate the pressure of the staffing gap of the Ministry of Shipping in the near future, which will undoubtedly be the best of both worlds for the Executive Committee. Since Gu Kai found this opportunity, he naturally wouldn't let it go lightly, and immediately pulled Huang Sanyuan to explain Haihan's policy of recruiting naturalized people, and Huang Sanyuan was stunned when he heard it.

For Huang Sanyuan, taking care of food and housing and paying a high salary, such a state of life sounds much better than their current situation. These things sound much more sincere than the land treatment methods that Gu Kai said before. If the Haihan people can really do the treatment they have said, then the hardships of these people in the fishing village will come to an end.

Gu Kai spent more than an hour negotiating with Huang Sanyuan, and then asked his subordinates to take ten taels of silver and hand it over to Huang Sanyuan in the name of hardship money. As for how Huang Sanyuan relayed it to the local people after he went back, Gu Kai didn't particularly care, the general trend of Haihan occupying this place would not change because of the opinions of the local people of this order, even if the people here were not happy, Haihan still turned this place into a new port according to his own plan. Of course, if the people here choose to cooperate, then their future life will definitely be better guaranteed than now, as for how to choose, it is all up to them.

Compared with these ordinary people who can be sent away for a small amount of silver, Gu Kai still cares more about the group of wealthy businessmen from Guangzhou. After yesterday's briefing, Gu Kai made a little understanding at the dinner in the evening, and the foreign funds that are generally interested in investment are at least more than 300,000 taels of silver, and this money is not to mention the development of this bay, even if the entire Hong Kong Island is developed, it is enough to save a little money.

Of course, Gu Kai will not be satisfied because the Guangzhou Office has brought in so many intentional funds, no one will be too much money. The more money is invested here, the more complete the Hong Kong Island stronghold that can be built in the future, even if it is good to build an extra breakwater and build an additional fort. There is really too much money to be used up, and in the future, you can also build a few holiday villas exclusive to traversers on Taiping Mountain, so that everyone can have the opportunity to enjoy the feeling of being a local tyrant.

Although Gu Kai is not a professional in engineering, he is still very responsible for following the engineers sent by the Ministry of Construction to survey the local topography and landform.

There is no doubt that the bay between Hong Kong Island and Ap Lei Chau has excellent port conditions, and in another time and space, Aberdeen Bay, Sham Wan and Tai Shue Wan have built large piers, and Ap Lei Chau Island has also built a port area in the northeast direction facing Hong Kong Island. If a fort is built on the commanding heights of Ap Lei Chau in accordance with the plan submitted by the military team of the Guangzhou Office, then the small island of Ap Lei Chau will definitely be allocated to the military as a military zone in the future.

In addition to the commanding heights on this side of Ap Lei Chau, the mountains in the southeast of the bay are also excellent observation points. In another time and space, Ocean Park Hong Kong is located and can be used as a lookout post to monitor the southern seas.

If there is any shortage of natural conditions here, it should be that the area of the plain area near the sea is too small. According to the preliminary calculations of the engineers, this narrow stretch of coastal area surrounded by mountains from the northeast is about two square kilometers in area, and even the pitiful flat terrain on Ap Lei Island is at most about the same size as when the port was first developed.

This kind of condition is barely enough to establish overseas cargo transshipment ports or military bases, but if it is to be built into a commercial center, it will obviously be extremely limited. Therefore, in the long run, the occupation of the entire Hong Kong Island is still a move that Haihan must take in the next period of time. However, neither the Guangzhou Office nor the Executive Committee are too eager to take this step, as long as they first take root in a corner of Hong Kong Island, it is only a matter of time before they take control of the whole island in the future.

As for the Ming Army's naval division stationed on the north side of the island, in fact, the Executive Committee did not worry about a conflict with it. After all, Liu Xiang's pirate gang has been entrenched in the nearby waters for several years, and the sailor has never dared to make any moves, as long as the militia navy does not take the initiative to hit the door, I believe that the sailor will also tacitly play the role of Xiao Transparent. Referring to the previous successful example, in less than a year or two, this water village will probably be the same as the Yazhou water village, which will be infiltrated to the empty shell.

On the afternoon of the third day of the team's stay in the local area, Huang Sanyuan approached Gu Kai again, saying that after discussions among the local fishing villagers, they were willing to accept the crew employment agreement issued by Haihan, but hoped that Haihan would allow the fishermen to continue to keep their land and real estate in the local area.

After hearing this, Gu Kai shook his head and said, "Old man, your request is not very reasonable. First of all, the government has handed over this area to us, and legally speaking, this area already belongs to our Haihan, and if we want to go to the government to fight a lawsuit, we must also be in charge. Secondly, as long as you are willing to do things for us, we will solve the problems of housing and life properly, so that you will not have problems with your livelihood, and you will no longer need to continue to depend on the land for survival. I still say the same thing, as long as we can show the title deed issued by the government, we all admit that if we are willing to sell, we will spend money to buy it, and if we are not willing to sell, we will not be reluctant. ”

Seeing that Huang Sanyuan was silent, Gu Kai continued to persuade: "We could have ignored these things at all, but out of morality, we are willing to give the people living here a better way out, as long as we follow our guidance, everyone can have the opportunity to live a richer life, isn't this a good thing?"

Huang Sanyuan hesitated for a while before he spoke: "Master Gu, it's not that the villain doesn't believe what you said, but there is no basis for what you say, this is also related to the livelihood of hundreds of people......

"Aren't you just worried about your future life if you take refuge in us? The Executive Committee has long been familiar with a set of handling models for this situation, and Gu Kai naturally uses it very purely: "You can recommend a few representatives to return to Qiongzhou Island with our ship to see how we are doing business in the local area, ask the tens of thousands of local people who are doing things for us, and inquire if there has been a time when our promises have not been fulfilled." Hearing is false, seeing is believing, I blow flowers here, it is better for you to see it for yourself. As for the cost, there is no need to worry, the representatives you elected, all the costs of the round trip will be borne by us, and you don't need to pay a copper plate. ”

At this time, Huang Sanyuan really couldn't find a reason to refuse, so he immediately said goodbye to Gu Kai and went back to greet the villagers to elect representatives.

The business delegation brought by Marico from Guangzhou only stayed here for three days before leaving, and the survey work of the engineers was not yet finished, so the merchants could not get a more detailed investment plan in time. However, all the merchants retained their intention to invest after this trip, and none of them planned to apply for a refund of the deposit, which also shows that these merchants have a lot of confidence in Haihan. It is no exaggeration to say that the Daming investors brought in by the Guangzhou Office this time rely entirely on the good business reputation accumulated by Haihan in the past, as well as the mouths of Marik and others.

After the business delegation returns to Guangzhou, it will immediately start the process of setting up the "Hong Kong Island Joint Development Company." Although the project budget and detailed development plan have not yet been made, Marik plans to use the "Qiong Lianfa" model to apply it first, and then circle this group of investors. If you make good use of the period before the official announcement of the project development details, there will probably be a chance for another group of investors from Guangdong to come in. And the more local tyrants this project brings in, the less official pressure Haihan will have to face to annex Hong Kong Island in the future.

After staying here for a week, the expedition led by Gu Kai also successfully retired to Sanya. Before leaving, he also took three representatives elected by the local fishing village with them on a mission to Sanya to see the emerging social form under the rule of the Haihan Executive Committee, and to see if the promises made by Gu Kai up to this point would be realized.

Observations like these suggest that fishermen on Hong Kong Island are not the first to do so. In the process of expanding the strength of the Haihan, there have been many such operations, such as the most recent one, when the working group that went to the Shilu area persuaded the local Li Dong to send an envoy to Sanya, Huang Que, to witness the true strength of the Haihan, to ensure that the promises made by the working group to them would not be bragging.

Huang Que was undoubtedly greatly shocked by what he saw and heard in Sanya, and as the authorities expected, Huang Que brought such an impact back to Li Tong in Shilu, and persuaded his fellow villagers to accept the plan of the Haihan people, gradually move the station to the coastal area at the right time, and began to learn to adapt to the Haihan social system and lifestyle.

The adoption of such a method to realize the intention of land expropriation and resettlement is undoubtedly much more acceptable than the use of force to suppress it. And this set of methods has been gradually perfected in the course of repeated use, and when these representatives of the people arrive in Sanya, people from the Ministry of Civil Affairs will naturally take over and use various propaganda methods to bombard them with brainwashing information in a short period of time. In just a few days, these people will naturally be thoroughly washed by repeated information indoctrination and psychological hints, and if they return to the fishing village after half a month, they will probably have become loyal believers in the Haihan civilization. They will go to great lengths to persuade their relatives and friends to give up their existing way of life and join the social system of Haihan.

In the next two months, the entire Ministry of Construction was almost overloaded, and even Tao Donglai, a leader who rarely goes out for foreign affairs, had to temporarily put aside other concurrent positions due to the shortage of engineering and technical personnel to focus on completing the work of the Ministry of Construction.

In late August, a seagoing boat returned to Hong Kong Island carrying three fishermen who had become Haihan fans, and they arrived with the engineering department's unbridled overtime to prepare a project budget. The project budget is divided into three parts: civil, commercial, and military, and the military has the highest secrecy process, and although the project cost is very high, military projects never attract external fundraising, and this time is no exception. The civil and commercial parts will adopt the form of joint investment and joint operation to implement the development, simply put, the merchants will jointly inject capital into the Hong Kong company, and then the Hong Kong company will invest in the construction, and then gradually recover the cost and generate income through the future operation.

Although this way of investing in industry will be much more than other businesses in the initial stage, it is better than stable returns and considerable benefits. The most important thing is that for businessmen who invest here, they can get a lot of convenience and preferential treatment in this place by virtue of their investor status in the future, and when this place gradually prospers, it will not be a treatment that can be bought lightly with money.