Chapter 978 Shilu Mine

As Van Diemen expected, the investment in human, material and financial resources required to build a railway is very huge. Even a rich man like Haihan would still feel pain in building such a railway that is dozens of kilometers long, and there will be many people during the construction.

Other construction projects carried out during the same period have had a certain impact, and the trouble caused is not limited to this area.

When the Ministry of Construction and the Ministry of Industry shifted their resources to the Shichang-Changzhou Railway, part of the projects in Sanya had to be suspended or postponed because of this, leaving the department responsible for railway construction with a huge burden during the construction period of more than a year.

The pressure to build the Shichang Railway was so urgent at that time because Haihan's shortcomings in steel production capacity had to be solved by mining the Shilu Mine, otherwise the entire development process would be delayed. However, after the completion of the Shichang Railway

, Haihan’s demand for land transportation is not so urgent. Most areas can still rely on the increasingly developed maritime transportation to solve transportation problems. Although the executive committee currently has plans for several railway lines, they are all

It has never been implemented, partly because of the impact such a large project would have on the overall construction process of Haihan.

Of course, Qiao Zhiya would not reveal the specific construction costs to Van Diemen, and responded in a evasive manner: "The cost of railway construction is indeed not low, but considering the production efficiency it can improve over a long period of time, we think this

It’s well worth the investment.”

Fan Diemen noticed a city emerging from the distant wilderness outside the car window on the right. When Qiao Zhiya saw this, he explained: "That's the Changhua County seat built by the Ming Dynasty, but now it's just a symbol."

Although Changhua County still retains its original appearance, the situation today is similar to that of Yacheng. The Ming Dynasty has long lost control over this place, and the county government in the city only maintains a nominal presence.

The county town is too small, and Qiao Zhiya has no interest in large-scale demolition and reconstruction, so the new administrative agencies are basically built in the new port area of ​​​​the port area next to the Changjiang River estuary, several miles away from the old county seat.

The distance between them is only a few minutes' drive.

During the next trip, the population on both sides of the railway became sparse, but from time to time we could still see large areas of farmland, some of which were still under cultivation. Qiao Zhiya introduced: "Our area was not originally a grain-producing area, so the grain consumed

Most of it needs to be transported from other places, but considering the cost issue, we have also started to organize local reclamation last year to plant rice, potatoes, corn and other food crops to meet part of the local food demand."

It is more than 80 miles from Changhua Port to Shilu Mine. Before Haihan took over, this area was basically in an undeveloped primitive state. The Shichang Railway was originally built along the north bank of the Changjiang River, so

The water conservancy resources and transportation in the areas along the way are not a problem. It would be a pity not to use the coastal plain areas with such good conditions for agricultural development. Therefore, since last year, the Ministry of Agriculture has successively organized the reclamation and cultivation of more than 20,000 acres of cultivated land, hoping to cultivate more than 20,000 acres of cultivated land in Changchun.

Gradually achieve self-sufficiency in food needs.

Compared with the cash crop plantations that are blooming everywhere in other areas, the reclamation situation in Changhua area is much simpler. Considering that the industries in Shilu, Changhua and Changhua are relatively sensitive, it is not suitable for outsiders to frequently enter and leave these areas, so they have not been disclosed to the outside world.

For investment invitations, all grain growing areas are cultivated by the Ministry of Agriculture and local civil affairs departments. This measure has also affected the development speed of local agricultural and forestry projects to a certain extent. The area of ​​cultivated land and the scale of planting are indeed incomparable to those that are open to investment invitations.

area.

After traveling inland to the east for about half an hour, the train entered a branch road and then slowly stopped. Van Diemen looked out of the window and saw that there were no people nearby. He wondered: "Why?"

Stopped here?"

"Waiting for the wrong train." After Qiao Zhiya finished speaking, seeing Van Diemen still looking confused, he explained to him: "Because there is also a train coming from the opposite side, so we have to wait here and wait for the train on the opposite side.

Let it pass before moving on.”

Taking into account the construction cost and actual use conditions, the Shichang Railway has not yet realized the full double-track construction. It has only set up a number of double-track sections for staggering trains along the way. When the double-track is fully completed in the future, these existing branch roads will also be incorporated.

On the double-track railway track, not long after the car stopped, a whistle was heard in the distance, and then a truck loaded with ore came from the opposite direction, roaring and speeding westward from the main road.

After the miscarriage was over, Van Diemen's train slowly started again. After this departure, the train did not stop on the way and ran directly to Shilu Station in one breath.

Van Diemen originally thought that the train station located in the inland mountainous area would be a little depressed. After all, there seemed to be no other institutions here except the mines, but the scene he saw after entering the station was indeed beyond his expectation.

It is expected that there will be hundreds of workers just waiting to load and unload goods on the platform. It seems that the momentum is no worse than that of the cargo terminal of Changhua Port. There are also several belt conveyors driven by steam engines on the platform, which are used to load and unload goods.

The ore that has undergone preliminary crushing is quickly loaded into freight cars.

In addition, Van Diemen also noticed that there were many Haihan soldiers in military uniforms and loaded with ammunition standing guard inside and outside the station, which seemed to be a bit heavily guarded. Van Diemen did not know that there had been riots in this place two years ago.

After that, the military strengthened local security, thinking that this was a security measure specially arranged by the Haihan people for their visit.

After the Shilu riot in September 1631, the military carried out a relatively thorough cleanup of the area within a hundred miles of the Shilu mine. Several cottages that participated in the rebellion were also destroyed. Since then, although the mine has

They still continue to use a large number of hard labor prisoners as labor force, but the management has been strengthened a lot, and there have been no similar signs in the past two years.

There are currently about five to six thousand miners working in the Shilu Mine, and about eight of them are prisoners serving sentences. All of them are responsible for working at the bottom of the mine where the conditions are the most difficult and dangerous. However, recently

In the past two years, the mine has increased the reward for reduced sentences based on labor points. In this way, many prisoners whose sentences are not particularly long have reduced their rebellious psychology and will no longer take great risks to seek opportunities to escape. And for those who may not

For those felons who have a chance to get out of Shilu, the mines will often arrange very heavy labor tasks for them to wear down their physical strength and will as much as possible, leaving them with no extra energy to think about unnecessary things.

Qiao Zhiya took Fan Diemen and Ning Qi directly to the Shilu No. 1 Mine, which is closest to the train station. After climbing up a mountain, Qiao Zhiya pointed ahead and said: "The sunken place in front is the mine pit."

Van Diemen walked to the edge of the mine to get a full view of the situation here. After three years of excavation, Mine No. 1 has formed a huge funnel-shaped pit on the surface. The diameter of this pit has exceeded one meter.

There, the deepest depth is about ten feet. In this mine alone, there are about two thousand workers engaged in mining operations, and nearly two hundred tons of ore are pumped out of this mine every day.

was excavated.

During the mining process, these ores are first crushed manually, and then transported to the crushing and processing station between the No. 1 and No. 2 mines, where they are further processed with an ore crusher. Next, they are shipped to the train station.

The smelting workshop is transported to Changhua via the Shichang Railway. Currently, there are three mines in Shilu, one large and two small. The ore mined every day can probably fill two freight trains.

Although in Van Diemen's eyes, the scale of production here is already quite amazing, Haihan himself is not satisfied with the production efficiency here. As Changhua's smelting equipment and personnel are gradually put in place, production capacity has gradually increased, and

The ore output of Shilu Mine is limited by the existing mining methods. If we just blindly increase labor input, the effect of increasing output will actually be very limited.

At present, the Ministry of Industry is already trial-producing steam-powered mechanical excavation equipment. After it is put into production in the future, the production capacity of one mechanical excavation equipment will be at least equivalent to hundreds of miners. Only then is it expected that the mining speed of the mine will be greatly improved. However, this type of machinery

The cost of equipment and subsequent use and maintenance costs are not cheap. It is difficult to say whether the cost of mining will decrease or increase.

Of course, it is more than enough. Haihan's current steel production is definitely second to none in the South China Sea. The steel production of the Dutch in Batavia and other colonies cannot even reach one-tenth of its share.

.However, from Van Diemen's perspective, it is difficult to understand Haihan's intention and long-term plan of needing a large amount of steel to establish an industrial society. He just instinctively feels that the strength gap between the two parties will widen in many fields. For example,

In terms of military manufacturing, the gap between the two sides is not only in technology, but also directly linked to steel production capacity. Haihan can equip his army with powerful firearms on a large scale, and sufficient steel supply is one of the necessary conditions.

After taking a quick look at the production conditions in the No. 1 mine, the sky had already darkened. Because Shilu is a pure production place, the living conditions are far inferior to those in Changhua Port. It is better.

After Qiao Zhiya got off the bus, he ordered people to make preparations. On the dinner table were deer, pheasants and rabbits that had just been hunted, fish caught in the Changjiang River, and some fruits and vegetables grown locally. The food was quite rich. The accommodation was also OK.

It was considered passable. Like all Haihan settlements, there was a special place for the chief to live temporarily. Van Diemen continued to enjoy high-level treatment.

Early the next morning, Van Diemen was awakened from his sleep by the sharp sound of the whistle. He got up, went to the window and looked out, and saw groups of people on the road leading to the mine in the distance.

The workers seemed to be ready to start work. Van Diemen looked at the sky and thought that this mine should be the first to start work among the places he visited these days. These Haihan people are really hard-working. Of course, he has something

I don’t know, but most of the workers here are prisoners, so the working standards are much stricter than in other places. From dawn to sunset every day, the hard laborers have to spend time at their jobs, eating, drinking and eating.

If it is spread all over the construction site, there will be no chance of sleeping in.

That morning, Van Diemen visited two other mines under the leadership of Qiao Zhiya, and watched the working conditions of the ore crusher. Seeing this large machine that can crush stubborn rocks, Van Diemen once again expressed his gratitude to the Haihan people.

He was so impressed by his creativity. However, he also saw that the principle of this machine was similar to the juicer he had seen before for crushing sugar cane and oil crops, except that no liquid would appear after the ore was crushed.

Watching baskets of ore being transported from the mine to the train station via the laid track, Van Diemen could easily imagine the scene where the ore would be put into the Changhua smelting furnace a few hours later. Haihan was in

The one-stop mining and smelting system established by Shiluchanghua has extremely high operating efficiency, which is a hard power that neighboring countries do not have. Van Diemen can be sure that the Haihan people will also use this after they find the next iron mine.

The entire set of mature operating methods has been copied from the past, and there is still no hope of when the East India Company will find an iron mine suitable for mining in Nanyang.

On the way back to Changhua from Shilu, Van Diemen's mood was obviously not as high as when he came. To put it bluntly, the production situation he saw in Shilu was simply despairing. Haihan's steel production capacity was

It will be difficult to surpass it in the foreseeable future. He was deeply impressed by the Haihan people's ability to organize production. Whether it was plantations, salt fields or mines, the operational efficiency was far higher than that of competitors of the same era. Fan Di

As the governor of the East India Company, he also knew a little about the operations of his institutions. When compared with Haihan, the gap immediately became apparent. Van Diemen's trip was originally to find Haihan.

Weaknesses, but it seems that we have discovered a bunch of weaknesses in our own family. This is really a great irony.

After completing his inspection of the Shilu area in Changchang, Fan Diemen took the "Speed" and continued north along the coastline. His next stop was Danzhou, an important town in the northwest of Hainan Island.

Haihan's offensive against Qiongbei in 1630 started from Danzhou, and then swept the entire Qiongbei area in just a few months, and completed control of Hainan Island the following year. In Danzhou in 1631

After the assassination, the local area went through repeated purges, killing and arresting all the squires who opposed Haihan, and transferred many naturalized people from Sanya to resettle them. It took two or three years to finally

Gradually, the social situation in Danzhou became stable.
Chapter completed!