Chapter 153 Differences of Opinion Regarding the New Air Route

If everything goes well and no major accidents occur, it will be about a month before the Heitugang Coal Mine is put into operation. The executive committee still has a big problem that needs to work hard to solve during this period, and that is the current situation of Chuanchuan Group.

We are facing a serious shortage of maritime transport capacity.

Since the beginning of the crossing, the Crossing Group has been stuck in the quagmire of lack of maritime transportation capacity and has been unable to extricate itself. Although there are many ships brought during the crossing, and the combined displacement exceeds 10,000 tons, due to the very limited fuel reserves,

After arriving in this time and space, they are limited to production levels and cannot replenish fuel in the short term. These ships, including the "New World", are now basically decorations leaning on the shore - of course, these huge decorations

It is very effective to visually shock foreigners who have just arrived.

The last time these ships were dispatched was three months ago. After catching the pirates including Takahashi Minami, all the iron ships never left the dock. If there is no large-scale attack in the future,

If there is an enemy coming from the sea, the Executive Committee will probably not let these ships move easily. Regarding the future development direction of maritime transportation of the Crossing Group, everyone agrees with the view put forward by the Ministry of Shipping, that is, sail power is the main power source of sea vessels.

Its status will last for a long time. Even if a steamship is launched in the future, sails will still be indispensable on the ship.

Now that the Ministry of Shipping has opened a golden finger and can grasp the development trend of future ships, it has become a matter of course to build ships by ourselves. However, the difficulty of building ships by ourselves is far beyond the pre-expectation. The current construction of this road is only

It takes these novices several months to build a sea-going ship made of 400 materials. With the current scale and speed of shipbuilding, several heads of the Military and Police Department doubt whether they will be able to wait until the day when the steam ironclad is launched in their lifetime.

This time, due to the development plan of overseas coal mines, the Executive Committee spent money to buy three ships and rented three ships to form a basic cargo fleet. However, a fleet of this size is not suitable for the ambitious Executive Committee.

, it’s really not enough to see, but there is no way to get more ships. The shipping industry between the various ports on Hainan Island is not very developed in the first place, and now the executive committee can’t find anything to buy even with the money in hand.

Ships. Although He Xi has ordered two 400-ton seagoing ships at the shipyard in Fucheng, Qiongzhou, they are estimated to be delivered towards the end of the year.

According to the Executive Committee's plan, it would be best to maintain a long-term capacity of ten to fifteen cargo ships on the route between Black Earth Port and Victory Port, but now it seems that the Ministry of Shipping's fleet is still quite far away from this goal.

distance. And the level of maritime transport capacity is likely to become a new bottleneck restricting the development speed of the crossing group after manpower.

At present, the only solution the Executive Committee can hope for is to send people to the mainland to buy ships. Last time Shopkeeper Li of "Fu Ruifeng" came back from Guangzhou, he brought back two large ships and dozens of sailors and boatmen. This is undoubtedly

It also shows that the mainland's shipping market is much more prosperous than that of Hainan Island. While the development of the Black Earth Port has begun to enter the track, the Executive Committee is also planning when to open the shipping route to the mainland.

Regarding whether to open a mainland route at this stage, in fact, there have always been two voices in the executive committee and even among the grassroots members of the group.

Navigationists believe that there are many benefits to opening up routes to the mainland. In addition to the well-known reason of opening up emerging markets, the raw materials and various craftsmen that the mainland can provide to the crossing group are not comparable to that of the small Hainan Island.

Since the opening of the port, although the Crossing Group has tried every means to introduce many immigrants from Yazhou and other places, most of these immigrants were previously engaged in agricultural production. Many people from the Li and Miao ethnic groups even do not know how to farm.

, but the shipwrights, carpenters, blacksmiths, plasterers, stonemasons and other people with professional skills that the executive committee wanted to bring in were very scarce.

This imbalance in the proportion of occupations has resulted in many technicians in the group having to engage in some simple and repetitive manual labor. This is undoubtedly a huge waste for the group that values ​​talents. Just

In Yazhou, which has a population of about 20,000, the proportion of craftsmen was originally very small, and now it is even more scarce. According to the report sent by the Yazhou Resident Office, the current housing prices in Yazhou have increased by at least 20% compared with when they first arrived.

A large part of the reason is that the Cross Travel Group took away a large number of carpenters and plasterers with favorable treatment, so that it often happened that some people wanted to repair their houses but could not hire the craftsmen.

Similar situations are not limited to the two industries of carpenters and plasterers. In a brick kiln outside Yazhou City, more than 30 people, from the foreman to the technicians, have all immigrated to Shengli Port because they can work here.

The remuneration received was twice what it was before in Yazhou. But even if the Yazhou Office has been doing its best to introduce craftsmen from Yazhou, the number of these professionals is far from the level expected by the executive committee.

The situation on the mainland is completely different. The population of Guangzhou alone is several times greater than that of the entire Hainan Island. The types and number of various professional craftsmen are naturally much richer than that of Yazhou, a remote town. The Navigation School believes that opening up

After establishing the sea route, we can introduce a large number of craftsmen from the mainland, thereby quickly improving the local productivity level.

The other group's views are relatively cautious. They believe that they cannot relax their vigilance just because they are currently getting along with Yazhou officials. If someone really wants to find fault, then their status will change from "overseas merchants" to

The "overseas rebel party" is probably just a matter of paperwork. What's more, now that the Crossing Group has extended its private salt business to Qiongzhou and Guangzhou, if it is really caught by the Guangzhou salt class promotion department,

A thoughtful person can make things big in a matter of minutes.

The cautious group believes that at this stage, the Crossing Group should not be in a hurry to come forward, but should focus on developing its own strength first. As for the export of goods, raw materials, and the import of population, it can be completely left to agents. This will not only avoid the need for shipping during shipping

risks, and can also avoid the public’s exposure in Guangzhou and attract official attention.

Of course, if this is the only reason for the cautious faction, it is definitely not convincing enough. In fact, the cautious faction has another very powerful argument that even the navigation faction cannot refute, and that is the existence of Western forces in the Guangzhou area.

During this period, Guangzhou was one of the most important foreign trade ports of the Ming Dynasty. Merchant ships from various Western maritime powers had gathered here. The Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch, French, and British had all been conquered long ago.

The executive committee has listed the forces as important competitors in the future. It is completely unpredictable now what attitude they will take if they know the existence of "Haihan".

Perhaps there will be Western merchants who are sensitive to business opportunities and will come to Port Victory to trade with the Crossing Group, but it is also very likely that they will attract the covetousness of some forces - especially when they learn that industries that are not even available in Europe can be produced here.

It's hard to say what kind of attitude they will have towards the time-traveling group when they are finished. No one knows whether these plundering sea robbers will take risks under the trend of profit and adopt some radical hostile measures against the time-traveling group.

For the Portuguese, Dutch, and Spanish who have established strongholds in the Far East, the crossing group, which currently seriously lacks sea power, is simply a piece of fat meat that can be caught in their bowl by just stretching out their hands. They don't even have to attack

Victory Port, as long as it directly cuts off the external sea routes of Victory Port, the crossing group can be trapped in this small harbor.

Of course, there is another possibility. Before the fat meat of the Crossing Group attracted all the maritime powers to Victory Port, it had already attracted a large number of pirates in the coastal areas. The pirate gang that attacked from Leizhou last time was just

They are just a small and unknown team among coastal pirates. For a truly large pirate group like Shiba Zhi, the Crossing Group simply does not have the ability to resist head-on. If it is really targeted by such a large pirate group,

The only thing the traversers could do was to retreat to the bastion of Base No. 1 and conduct defensive operations, waiting for the opponent to lose patience and retreat on their own.

The situation in the South China Sea is very complex. Cautious people believe that when the transit group is still lacking the ability to protect itself, it should not rush into this muddy water, but should develop steadily and build a reliable team first.

The maritime power of China should consider opening shipping routes again.

The disputes between these two factions have never stopped since time travel. The public is right and the mother-in-law is right. The keyboard executive committee members will fight fiercely on the forum every now and then, and the opinions of the executive committee have always been the same.

He was wavering and did not come up with a final decision on this.

This situation lasted until mid-August, when a fleet from Guangzhou arrived at Victory Port, bringing an end to this protracted dispute.

After the last trip to the Guangzhou head office, shopkeeper Li of "Furuifeng" had already brought a letter to the executive committee. In the near future, senior personnel of "Furuifeng" will come to Shengli Port to contact them to discuss long-term stability.

business cooperation model. This time not only did people come, money came, but they also brought two large-scale ships purchased for the Cross-Travel Group in Guangzhou.

The fleet had already been spotted by the coast guard outside Victory Port. After the coast patrol vessel passed by and learned of the other party's intention, it immediately notified the port through the walkie-talkie, and the port quickly contacted Tiandu Industrial Zone.

So several executive committee members immediately rode their bicycles all the way back to Port Victory to meet with this distinguished guest who was said to be a senior executive of the "Furuifeng" head office.
Chapter completed!