Inadvertently, the calendar was turned to 1681, and Yicheng Port also ushered in a rainy and humid summer.

Today is the great day for the official completion of the Yicheng Iron Factory on January 18. For this reason, local officials including Xiao Jingzong, the Regional Administration Commissioner, and Lin Chaoen, the Yicheng County Mayor, also came to celebrate.

It is worth mentioning that the county magistrate of Yicheng County, Lin Chaoen, was an immigrant from the Qing Dynasty and was born in Jiangbei. He was accused by General Mo in the early years. After 30 years of hard work, he met a noble person who appreciated him. Therefore, he gradually became the position of Yicheng County magistrate who was originally favored by many second-generation women. In addition, his wife Li Mengqin is also doing well and is currently the president of the Yicheng Branch of the Northwest Reclamation Bank. The two of them work in the same place, which attracted people's attention for a while.

However, Governor Li works in Yicheng, and many people, including Xiao Jingzong, like it very much. The reason is that Northwest Reclamation Bank has greatly facilitated the loans in terms of loans, especially the eye-catching Yicheng Iron Smelting Plant project. When United Industrial Credit Bank refused to continue lending due to financial constraints, Northwest Reclamation Bank took over in time, allowing the project to continue. Xiao Jingzong was extremely satisfied with this and was also very fond of his husband Lin Chaoen.

There was also a special task for the local officials to celebrate, which was the mission from the East Korea Kingdom. This mission was about 30 people, led by Zhao Chuyan, the Eastern Army, and was sent to the East Coast under the order of Emperor Suzong of North Korea, to see the customs and customs of the Eastern Korea Shangguo, and to purchase some books to return to North Korea for research. After being "bullified" by the East Coast people for so many years, the Korean monarch and ministers also had self-esteem. They also wanted to see what kind of wind dance the Eastern Korea Shangguo was so trembling with just one colonial division, and how North Korea should strengthen itself.

The ship carrying the North Korean mission set off from Ganghwa Island. It is a "Yaksa"-class armed transport ship with a standard displacement of 250 tons, made of oak and pine. The ship is called "Xianzong King". After being equipped with eight medium-caliber East Coast guns, it has become a new warship with great strength among the North Korean navy (although the East Coast people positioned it as a transport ship...).

This time, the "King of Xianzong" was on the east coast. In addition to carrying the North Korean mission, there were also a large amount of cargo on the ship, some of which were high-end medicinal materials and furs used to give gifts (including state gifts, of course, the most was gifts used to build relationships). The rest were planned to be sold publicly in the East Coast market to raise funds for the mission. There was no way, the Kingdom of Korea has never been very rich and was exploited by the East Coast. In addition, the kings were relatively stingy for several consecutive terms, so they could only bring a batch of goods on the ship and sell them to the East Coast to raise funds.

After arriving at Yicheng Port, the ships of the North Korean mission lived here due to sudden illness and the ships really needed maintenance and maintenance, so they lived here and received condolences from the Yicheng Regional Administration. At this time, the main equipment and factory of the Yicheng Iron Smelting Plant were officially completed. Xiao Jingzong, the specialist of the Regional Administration, also invited the North Koreans to attend the ceremony with joy, intending to let these local buns see the power of the industry, and plant the seeds of the great East Coast and the most prosperous and the four seas in their minds.

Sure enough, several major officials of the North Korean mission led by Zhao Chuyan were a little lost in their minds after seeing the huge iron smelting furnace. Then, they visited the ore crushing field, flat track transportation system, casting yard, etc., and the impact was even more huge. During this period, a low-level North Korean official asked about some details carefully. Xiao Jingzong smiled and did not stop him, because the North Koreans asked in vain. With the primitive and crude metal smelting level in their country, it was absolutely impossible to get into the modern steel smelting system of the East Coast people in one step. If they like to ask, let them ask. In the face of the modern industry with fine division of labor, they could not ask too many useful things. What they could bring back in the end was at best, at best, the exaggerated and unrealistic random descriptions of literati and Confucian scholars who were not skilled, and maybe they were full of criticism.

Since it is an iron smelting plant, it naturally requires raw materials such as coal and iron ore. There is no need to worry about coal. The large coal mine in Chenggao County next door has entered the actual mining stage. More than 500 local soldiers from the Eight Banners of the islands supported by New China drove more than 5,000 black slave workers to build roads, houses and coal washing plants while mining raw coal.

The reason why there are so many slaves is that they are labor workers is available is that they cannot help but mention the stormy offensives of East Coast people on the Swahili coast of East Africa in recent years. It is said that since the new official Qiu Haiyang took office, three fires decided to send troops to the waters around the island to crack down on the disobedient Moorian Tumen princes, a huge number of Swahili blacks were transported to the Comoros Islands by the East Coast army. Subsequently, these Swahili people were identified in the Comoros concentration camp, and after the selection, they exceeded the

Half of them were sent to the major state-owned plantations, quarries, forest farms, coal mines, iron ore, gold mines, graphite mines, brick kilns, and construction teams on the island, and served as heavy manual laborers. The remaining half were sent to Yicheng County, Chenggao County, and Yiyang Bay to participate in the construction. Even the local area also distributed a lot of Swahili laborers to the local area, of course, not for nothing. In fact, the Xinhuaxia Island exchanged a considerable number of local eliminated machinery and equipment for this, which played a major role in local production.

Now, although Qiu Haiyang has resigned from the position of captain of the New China Development Team, and the battle to stop the expedition has come to an end, because there were quite a few people who had been arrested before, the shortage of labor that had plagued the Yicheng area for a long time has long been no longer a problem. They divided the massive labor force they assigned into several groups and worked separately, completing the second phase of the Yicheng Port Terminal expansion, and the construction of several third-class national highways in the county. Chenggao Coal Mine was successfully built and entered the stage of formal commercial production. In addition to supplying consumption in the region, it was also exported to Hezhong and even the local area, obtaining a lot of profits.

In addition, as the "supporting infrastructure" of the Yicheng Iron Smelting Plant, the Yicheng Railway, which was recognized by the entire region as early as 1677 and planned to "build it even if it is difficult", has made great progress under the hard work of these black workers: by the end of 1680, the Yicheng Railway had been built for more than 50 kilometers, exceeding one-third of the total design length. I believe that if there was not a large gap in funds, the entire line would have been completed by the end of last year.

However, this railway is indeed impossible to drag on. Because the Chenggao Coal Mine and Yicheng Iron Smelting Plant at both ends of the railway have been completed. If you rely solely on Yicheng Second Class for transportation, it will not only be less efficient, but the cost is also relatively high, and it is not very safe on the road. Don't doubt this. There are many Zulu and Swazi people who have great hatred for the people of the East Coast. It is not uncommon for transport teams to encounter attacks in recent years.

In order to overcome this difficulty, Xiao Jingzong, a commissioner of the Yicheng Regional Administration, took a boat to Xinhua Port last month and had a consultation with Peng Yuanzhi, who was in charge of the work of New China Island, intending to borrow a batch of materials and funds so that the railway that was about to be put into a pot could continue. Unfortunately, Peng Yuanzhi was just an acting captain who was temporarily in charge of the work and had no right to deal with such a large amount of money and property, so Xiao Jingzong finally returned disappointed.

In the end, Xiao Jingzong finally borrowed 100,000 yuan from the Northwest Reclamation Bank where his wife served as the branch president through the path of Yicheng County Mayor Lin Chaoen to borrow money from Northwest Reclamation Bank, where his wife served as the branch president, for emergency relief. However, this amount of money is undoubtedly a drop in the Yicheng Railway Project, which is still about one million yuan, and it cannot last long. If you want to solve the funding problem, you still have to obtain a large loan or directly attract the central government's investment, but this seems a bit difficult at the moment.

In the end, Xiao Jingzong decided to "lent" a group of black laborers with a number of 6,000 people (including the large number of Tongjia people, Swazi people they captured themselves) to the State Railway Administration, which needed a large amount of labor to build railways in exchange for them to give a batch of railway equipment worth about 200,000 yuan to the Yicheng Regional Administration. However, this act of sending out labor force suddenly emptied the reserve slave labor reserves in Yicheng area, causing Xiao Jingzong to grit his teeth and ordered them to Mao Jun, Tang Moyu and other major military officials, so that they could search nearby for life, arrest the Xhosa, Zulu, Tongjia and Swazi people, and supplement the severely blood-lost labor reserves in the region. There was no one else.

"Yicheng Iron Smelting Plant was a project that former Commissioner Qiu came to. It was called a 'miracle' at that time. This shows the importance of this country's investment projects to the future development of our region. I, Xiao, have the same attitude. Yicheng Iron Smelting Plant wants to produce, and if it doesn't work, it needs to be produced. I don't want brand new factories to be exposed to the sun and rain, and new equipment is rusted and idle here, and it must be used! To make the Yicheng Iron Smelting Plant operate normally, the key points are two places. One is that our own Yicheng Railway must do everything possible to complete it as soon as possible. This is a hard task.

There is any reason to delay; the second thing is that it depends on the New China Development Team. When will their Kanghua iron ore be able to produce iron ore stably, it is also crucial to us. Alas, I can't urge you to do this. After all, New China Island has helped us a lot. The project of this iron plant was stolen from them by Commissioner Qiu. Oh, I can't say anything about urging you." After the inauguration ceremony, Xiao Jingzong took a group of people to walk to the canteen of the factory for work meals, and said to the attendants who were following him on the way.

Xiao Jingzong's words were actually meaningful. Officials in Yicheng area all know that the iron plant project, Xinhuaxia Island, had been striving for it, and the reasons were ready-made. There is a large-scale pyrodite in Kanghua Port, accompanied by gold and silver, which is of great value for mining. For this reason, they started to move around many years ago, trying to convince the Government Council and even the Executive Committee to agree to build a steel smelting enterprise in their place. In the end, there were even some signs of success. The boss of the Ministry of Industry and Commerce had agreed to establish a small iron smelting plant in Kanghua Port to use local resources nearby to develop the local economy.

But who would have thought that Qiu Haiyang, who was the commissioner of the Yicheng Regional Administration at that time, had great magical powers. After going to the central ministries and commissions, he intercepted the project, which made him settle in the Yicheng area, and the investment scale doubled, making the people of New China Island almost irritated. However, they were very noble after Qiu Haiyang was transferred to the position of captain of the New China Development Team in a flash, the largest island colony under the East Coast rule continuously provided a lot of money, grain, materials and labor for the Yicheng area, and even continued to this day. It was quite touching, of course to a certain extent

In other words, this is actually a mutually beneficial thing. Southern Africa does need a steel production center. If this center is built in Yicheng Port, it will be an acceptable result for New Huaxia Island! You must know that the Hezhong region has been working hard to win a steel project for many years, but it is really uncompetitive in terms of resources and eventually lost to the Yicheng region. Therefore, since you have been sure that you cannot get this project, it is acceptable to give it to Yicheng Port. In short, you cannot settling it in Hezhong, as it will be too far from New Huaxia Island.

"Commissioner Xiao, there is no need to worry too much about this. Xinhuaxia is actually quite anxious about Kanghua pyroferrous ore, but now their new captain (Shao Yaoguang) has not taken the position. Peng Yuanzhi, the agent, was discouraged and had no big moves. I believe that after Captain Shao takes office next month, this project will enter the substantial development stage. Anyway, I heard from a fellow villager working in Kanghua Port that the wharf has been repaired long ago and the mine has been opened. Now it is short of manpower and has not received instructions from superior development. If you really want to start, actually

It's also quite fast." When the magistrate of Yicheng County Lin Chaoen heard this, he comforted him and said: "And their mine is a pyrodite accompanied by gold and silver, with a large scale. According to the ruling of the superiors, the smelting and separation of gold and silver belongs to the Xinhuaxia Development Team, and the smelting costs are paid for by part of the iron ore. After that, they actually don't have to pay anything, and they just transported the ore to us, and then they can collect the money on the ground, and the profit is extremely generous. With this factor, they will definitely work harder. Don't worry, Commissioner Xiao, I guess they are probably more anxious than us, haha."

"Well, that's right, that's right." Xiao Jingzong smiled faintly and said, "I hope it's true."
Chapter completed!