Chapter 1280 Yinggehai County

Yinggehai County is one of the few areas on the island that is governed by naturalized officials. However, the man in charge here is not a novice. He was one of the first local officials of the Ming Dynasty to join Haihan, Yacheng Shuizhai.

Naval officer Luo Shengdong.

Luo Shengdong received a lot of benefits after joining Haihan. Not only was he successfully promoted from a low-level officer to a general, but he also used his authority to use naval warships as transportation to traffic goods to the Ming Dynasty's ruling area at that time.

The private salt produced by Haihan made a fortune after several years of hard work. Later, Luo Shengdong saw that Haihan was becoming more and more powerful in Hainan Island, and the salt business gradually changed from underground smuggling to an open operation. Private salt dealers

The space for activities was getting smaller and smaller, and I no longer wanted to hang on to a useless empty title of general, so I simply gave up my official position in the Ming Dynasty, bought a house in Sanya, and became a naturalized citizen, and I can peacefully become a Han Chinese.

Now that he has given up his identity as a Mingren and became a Haihan, Luo Shengdong's issues have naturally shifted from getting rich to future development. This is not only his personal destiny, but also related to the future prospects of his family. Money

For Luo Shengdong, there will definitely be more to use in this life, and the next generation will basically be able to have food and clothing without worries. He has invested in some plantations in Hainan Island and various colonies in the South China Sea, and has gradually entered a stable

During the profit period, the annual profit is not much worse than the previous smuggled salt, which is enough to protect the family's future living needs.

But this alone is not enough. Luo Shengdong has tasted the sweetness of holding power, and naturally he is not willing to be a landlord waiting for death in the rest of his life. Moreover, the Haihan Kingdom's national power is booming. If he cannot give his descendants a better background,

So no matter how rich the Luo family is, they are still ordinary people. They want to find a way to become officials in Haihan. Luo Shengdong believes that this is the best plan to protect the family's descendants.

Luo Shengdong believed that he got along relatively well with the senior officials of Haihan, so he came forward to seek help from the executive committee, hoping to serve the country in a different way. The executive committee wanted to use him to serve Haihan in the past few years.

He also did a lot of things before and after the committee, and he even participated in many shady things. He had both credit and hard work, so he was given such an opportunity. Anyway, Haihan appointed Ming Dynasty and other countries to surrender.

Officials have already had precedents, and Luo Shengdong is no different.

Of course, Luo Shengdong did not take office immediately after the executive committee nodded. Instead, he participated in government affairs training for a period of time, and later practiced in Sanya, Danzhou and Haikou for about a month before being appointed.

Director of the Management Committee of Yinggehai County.

However, what played a key role was that Luo Shengdong worshiped the right Bodhisattva and burned the right incense. A few years ago, he forcibly worshiped Anxi, who was in charge of the salt industry of the Haihan Industrial Department, as his disciple for his private salt business.

He was several years older than Anxi, but from then on he treated Anxi as a master and apprentice. When Luo Shengdong proposed to the executive committee for a job transfer, Anxi also spoke up for him in the middle, so that Yingying was

The errands of Gehai County were handed over to Luo Shengdong.

Luo Shengdong has a famous teacher, and he has been in this industry for several years. He knows all the ins and outs. If he is appointed as the local magistrate of the salt production area, he is professionally qualified. Although he was a military attache before.

, but after receiving government affairs training from Haihan, he is capable enough to manage a county. Although there are many wealthy salt merchants coming here, Luo Shengdong himself is a wealthy man and will not be easily used by others.

Money was used to bribe him, and he also knew that Haihan's internal supervision system had an independent operation system. His official position was not an iron-clad job, so since he took office for more than a year, he had managed the place in order and had not committed any crimes.

Obvious negligence.

Sanya sent inspection teams to inspect the government and people's conditions in various counties. Luo Shengdong had been notified of this in advance, but it was only after Yu Xiaobao and others arrived to live in Yinggehai that he learned the news. Luo Shengdong's attitude was still very serious

Duan Zheng came to the county guest house early in the morning and took the initiative to meet Yu Xiaobao. After everyone had breakfast together, Luo Shengdong took them to visit the local salt farm production.

"Do you still need to take a ride?" Liu Shang saw several carriages with awnings parked outside the guest house, and he couldn't help but wonder. Is this place too rich? The salt farm is obviously within sight.

, and several carriages were specially sent to pull people.

However, Luo Shengdong explained the reason next: "The salt field in the county is too large, and it is too tiring to rely on two legs. You can take a bus to inspect, and your body can relax a little."

Luo Shengdong's move is really not just about showing off his wealth or flattering. The Yinggehai Salt Field is quite large, with a span of about ten miles in the east-west and north-south directions. It would indeed be tiring to visit on two legs. Moreover,

Most of the people who came here to visit were salt merchants. Naturally, these big and well-off merchants wanted to take a bus for the tour. Now they only gave Xiaobao and his party equal treatment.

After the carriage drove closer, Liu Shang discovered that the salt fields here were not a vast expanse of white as seen from a distance, but were composed of countless rectangular salt fields. Some salt fields had basically completed the process of drying salt, and the white sea salt looked like white snow.

Covered in the salt fields. Some saltworks workers are shoveling the dried salt together with wooden shovels. The piles of salt look like winter snow from a distance.

It's a pity that the car Liu Shang was riding was not equipped with a dedicated commentator, and Luo Shengdong was accompanying Yu Xiaobao and Zhang Qianzhi in the car in front. Liu Shang wanted to understand the scale and production of local salt fields.

In terms of ability, I probably can only give in a little bit first.

However, even if Liu Shang was not that familiar with the production process of the salt farm, he quickly discovered a special item that he recognized in his field of vision - a steam engine. Different from steam engines elsewhere, it is mainly used here.

It is used to draw water and pump the saturated salt liquid in the brine pool into the crystallization pool. This is much more efficient than the original manual pumping of water. Liu Shang looked at the churning steam engine and thought that the Haihan people were indeed going to

This steam engine has been used in various situations, including the salt field. The water pumping efficiency of this steam engine is ten times better than manpower. The Haihan people dare to boast that this is the best salt field in the world, and they are indeed confident.

In fact, Haihan began to trial steam engine irrigation equipment to assist production a few years ago at the Salt Farm Commune outside Shengli Port. After accumulating a lot of experience in use, it gradually extended it to other salt production areas including the Yinggehai Salt Farm. However, In the promotion of Yinggehai, we also encountered a big problem, that is, the local fresh water resources are relatively scarce, especially near the salt fields, there is no fresh water source at all, and we can only rely on digging wells to mine groundwater. To meet the working needs of the steam engine, a lot of additional manpower and material resources were spent.

However, the production efficiency improvement brought about by the use of steam engines is very significant, and the increased benefits quickly make up for these expenses. Currently, more than ten steam pumps are put into use in various salt fields in Yinggehai. However, this is not suitable for the production scale of Yinggehai. It is not enough. Luo Shengdong also hopes to take advantage of the opportunity of the inspection team coming to inspect the work in Sanya to express the local production needs so that the Ministry of Industry can arrange the production of several more sets of steam engine irrigation equipment to be delivered to Yingge as soon as possible. Used in sea salt fields.

Similar to other places, as more and more people became aware of the productivity changes brought about by steam-powered machinery, early promotion gradually turned into active requirements of users, and Haihan's industrial manufacturing capabilities were far from sufficient. To solve the demand for steam engines, many places can only submit orders to the Ministry of Industry first, and then the Executive Committee and the Ministry of Industry jointly decide which regions and industries to solve the needs first.

In the current environment where Haihan is constantly expanding its actual control area, the military is undoubtedly the first purpose that needs to be taken care of. The Haihan Sea Territory spans more than ten thousand miles from north to south. Steam warships have become an indispensable combat weapon for the navy. Haihan The maritime military superiority maintained over other countries depends to a large extent on the performance improvement brought by steam power to warships. At least half of the steam engine production capacity of the Ministry of Industry must be allocated to military projects, and the remaining part can be used by other companies. Civilian projects are divided up, and the competition can even be described as fierce.

Although Luo Shengdong has some friendship with the senior officials of Haihan, he has been in the officialdom for so many years and understands that it is not a wise behavior to use personal relationships to resolve official matters, so even though the Yinggehai Salt Farm has a huge demand for steam equipment , he could only try to make requests to the superiors through formal channels. In Luo Shengdong's eyes, the inspection team could actually be regarded as a shortcut worth trying.

As long as Yu Xiaobao and others can be persuaded to apply to the executive committee, the effect may be much better than if Luo Shengdong made his own report. He knew very well how favored Yu Xiaobao was in Haihan and The friendship with high-level figures is not comparable to that of myself, so I have made certain preparations for the arrival of Xiaobao and others. Apart from anything else, the inspection team can all be assigned to single rooms when they check in at the guest house. This is It was the result of Luo Shengdong saying hello in advance.

Of course, Luo Shengdong's methods don't stop there. Based on his own experience in officialdom, he believes that young and successful officials like Yu Xiaobao won't care too much about the verbal praise from others, because he should not look down on such people at all. Eyes, as for bribery in disguised form, it is absolutely undesirable. Once the other party thinks that you have any bad intentions, and goes back to make a small report to the leaders, you will not be able to clean yourself by jumping into the South China Sea.

Luo Shengdong believes that the key to pleasing the other party is to make the other party feel happy during their local business trip. In addition to providing Yu Xiaobao and others with relatively comfortable food, accommodation and transportation conditions, he also specially summoned the management of various local departments in advance

The personnel have made preparations, the production unit has emphasized labor discipline, and cleaning work has been carried out in residential areas and commercial areas. They have also prepared government information to ensure that the inspection team cannot find too many problems in the local area.

Both parties are naturalized cadres, and their official status is about the same. They have known each other eight years ago, but they have no intersection at work and rarely interact with each other. But I have to say that Luo Shengdong was so rough.

There are detailed arrangements in the book, which is really to Xiaobao's liking. He only hopes to be able to complete his work smoothly in Yinggehai County. He does not need the other party to give him any benefits or show a flattering attitude, as long as he can

Just cooperate well and explain the local government affairs situation.

After walking about two miles, the convoy stopped at a place with many houses. This was not the residence of local people, but a production center that managed the nearby salt fields. The main function here was to allocate manpower and production tasks.

, to store production tools, and a warehouse to store finished salt.

Liu Shang noticed that all the houses here were built with heavy stones. This was the first time Liu Shang saw this kind of all-stone house after coming to Hainan Island. When he walked in, he could see the outer wall surface of the house.

There are tiny pieces of salt attached to it, and you can twist it off with your fingers.

At this time, Luo Shengdong was also introducing to everyone the reason for building this kind of house. It is because the salt-alkali content in the local air is relatively heavy, and other building materials are easily corroded. Only stone can maintain long-term stability. However, in this way

, the cost of building houses is naturally much higher than elsewhere. If the salt farm had not had abundant financial resources, it would be difficult to build such expensive stone buildings in large quantities.

Luo Shengdong led everyone into one of the houses, where several people were bending over their desks and fiddling with some salt on the table in small porcelain dishes. Luo Shengdong introduced: "The chief of Anxi has set three standards for locally produced salt.

To meet the standards, here the salt that has been made is sampled and tested to see if it meets the standards. If it does not meet the standards, it cannot be sold to outsiders."

The so-called three-level standard is actually more for commercial sales considerations. The quality of salt is used as a reference standard for pricing to achieve the purpose of covering all price levels. Specifically, it is divided into coarse salt, refined salt and

Three levels of special salt.

Coarse salt is basically natural salt after salt water evaporates and the salt crystallizes. The production process is the simplest, the lowest cost, and the price is naturally the cheapest. It is a weapon used by Haihan to seize the low-end market. The production process of refined salt is extremely complicated.

It is necessary to filter the coarse salt, add other solutions to form a precipitate, remove various impurities, and then evaporate the water. After a series of physical and chemical purification processes, a relatively pure refined salt is obtained. This process is very complicated.

If there are too many, the price on the market will naturally increase exponentially.

As for the more high-end special salt, it mainly relies on commercial packaging to sell the concept. On the basis of refined salt, some flavoring ingredients are added, coupled with exquisite packaging and specially formulated brand promotion strategies, the sales targets are also

Mainly the upper class of society who are not short of money, the price is more than ten times higher than that of coarse salt. Although the output is not high, the profit is considerable.
Chapter completed!