1627 Rise of the South China Sea

Chapter 107 Market Changes
Walking across the suspension bridge and stepping into the base, the two shopkeepers suddenly found that the houses built inside the wall of the village were all neat and uniform, and even the drainage ditch under the eaves was as straight as a knife.The road surface is clean and tidy, without the chaotic scene in Yazhou City, let alone the livestock manure that may appear everywhere.Although the place is not big, it looks very orderly.Some coconut trees are reserved in the gaps between the houses, so that the space in the base is not lacking in green embellishments.Apart from the natural fragrance of plants and trees in the air, there is no smelly smell of domestic garbage in Yazhou City.

The two shopkeepers were shocked, but felt that although the environment here is not bad, most of the houses are a bit small, and they don't know why these wealthy Haihan people are willing to live in such a place.From this point of view, their opinion is very consistent with Luo Shengdong, the general manager of the water village. Luo Shengdong also believes that with the material and financial resources of the Haihan people, instead of building some comfortable courtyards, they live in this kind of military camp. In a collective dormitory, this kind of behavior is simply incomprehensible.

At present, except for a few people staying in Shengli Port to take care of the daily maintenance of the ship's equipment, the vast majority of them still live in the prefabricated houses of the No. [-] base.Due to the continuous shortage of manpower in the past few months, there are only a few limited masonry structures in the No. [-] base, and all of them are for special purposes, not for people to live in, such as the canteen kitchen that needs to use open flames, and the storage of firearms. The arsenal of munitions, the computer room with large database servers, and the telecommunications center in charge of the entire Shengli Port—the wireless communication in the Tiandu area, etc.

The time-traveling people didn't intend to continue living in such a difficult and simple way, but since time-traveling, there have been more important infrastructure projects than building dormitories, so everyone can only accept this kind of accommodation conditions for migrant workers.However, the Executive Committee intends to wait until the Tianduhe Hydropower Station is completed and put into operation, and then begin to build a batch of masonry dormitories on the Hexin Island next to the hydropower station to solve the housing problem that has plagued the travelers for a long time.This place is adjacent to the hydropower station and the future industrial base on the east bank of the Tiandu River. It is more convenient to ensure electricity supply or go to work. In addition, it is surrounded by natural rivers, and it is easier to build basic fortifications.

Of course, even if masonry houses are built in the future, they cannot be the courtyard-style buildings that the Ming people thought they should have.The Ministry of Construction has long planned to build dormitory buildings according to the structure of the tube buildings of later generations, and then distribute them on an individual or family basis.As for the construction of real comfortable housing, the Executive Committee believes that it will not be put on the agenda until the development of Sanya's "two rivers and one port" area in the future. Construction and development of commercial and residential buildings.

Entering the conference room which was also made of prefabricated houses, the two shopkeepers discovered that the house was not made of stone or wood, but was built of extremely thin boards, and it was even more embarrassing to these Haihan people at the moment. I admire the craftsmanship.

After Tao Donglai warmly invited the two guests to sit down, he asked, "It's a bit hot today, do you two want some iced drinks to relieve the heat?"

Shopkeeper Zhang was surprised: "There is ice available here?"

Tao Donglai said with a smile: "We have our own ice-making method, and ice is available all year round."

Shopkeeper Li was also surprised and said: "Then I have to see it."

Both of them have stayed in Yazhou for a long time, and they have never heard of any local households that have ice available during this season, not to mention the "ice making method" that Tao Dong said can make ice all year round.Shopkeeper Li knew that some wealthy families in Guangzhou would use saltpeter to make ice, but Yazhou did not produce saltpeter locally, so no one used this method to make ice.Could it be that these Haihan people have been purchasing a large amount of saltpetre in Yazhou, just to make ice cubes for drinking in summer?But the Haihan people live in such a "shabby" way, and eat so extravagantly, it seems unreasonable.

Naturally, the crossing people would not use the saltpeter they had purchased so hard to make ice, it was a precious raw material for making gunpowder.As for the method of making ice, of course it comes from several large commercial refrigerators purchased before crossing.There are four freezers with a volume of more than 800 liters, which are mainly used for fresh food preservation in the two bases.In addition, there are several small refrigerators, which are used for the scientific research needs of agriculture, metallurgy, chemical industry and other departments.

The two shopkeepers stared dumbfounded at Tao Donglai, picked up a small black box and said a few words, and after a while, someone actually brought in several bowls of mung bean soup and a small bucket of ice cubes.

"You two, please help yourself." Tao Donglai made a gesture of invitation, signaling for the two to put ice cubes in the mung bean soup by themselves.

Seeing the small bucket of ice and the tongs used to hold the ice cubes are bright and can reflect the figure, the same thought flashed in their minds: "Before I thought that the Haihan people were not trying to be extravagant, so it turned out that they were just looking away." At a glance, even the utensils for holding ice cubes are obviously made of fine steel!"

The ice cubes in the ice bucket are all half an inch square, with the same size and shape. The two shopkeepers can tell at a glance that these are indeed ice cubes specially made for cold drinks.The Li shopkeeper of "Furuifeng" hesitated for a while, but still asked: "Could it be that you purchased a large amount of saltpeter to make ice cubes in the heat?"

Tao Donglai and Schneider were taken aback for a moment, and then burst out laughing.Tao Donglai waved his hands and said, "We have a special way to make ice, not with saltpeter. The ice cubes are not for cold drinking, but the two of you came from a long way today, so we'll take them out to entertain you." Just guests."

The two shopkeepers ate a bowl of iced mung bean soup, and immediately felt refreshed. They felt that the fatigue along the way had also been reduced a lot, and they immediately turned to the topic.The two each took out the invoices for this time and handed them to Tao Shi.

The content of this manifest is mainly the cash that has not been settled in the previous transaction, and some goods that are used to offset the price according to the requirements of the Cliff Office, mainly including coal coke, saltpeter, sulfur, ropes and so on.

Schneider noticed that the price of some of the goods had changed from the first transaction price, so he asked, "I remember that the price of coal last time was eight cents per hundred catties. How long has it been since it has risen to two cents?" ? Could it be that the coal you two transported this time is better than last time?"

Shopkeeper Zhang waved his hands repeatedly and said, "It's not that our two families intend to increase the price, but that the coal price in the market has indeed increased a lot."

Shopkeeper Li continued: "Most of the coal used in Yazhou comes from Danzhou and Qiongzhou Fucheng. In the past, when the supply was sufficient, it was indeed at the price of eight cents per catty. But recently, it is said that a large number of peasants were recruited from the north, resulting in insufficient manpower. Mining coal, that's why prices skyrocketed."

"Why is there a large number of civil servants suddenly recruited? Could it be that there is some kind of war?" Tao Donglai was very keenly aware of the unusual smell.

"It's not the She'an Rebellion in Sichuan and Guizhou. The imperial court has fought back and forth for six years and has not wiped out the rebel party. Now the flames of war are said to have reached the Guangxi Chief Secretary. When an imperial decree came down, the whole of Guangdong and Guangxi got busy, even the Qiongzhou government office was no exception. The people who were conscripted will be sent to the Guilin government office to serve as the responsibility of transportation.” Li, the well-informed shopkeeper, introduced it by the way. The times he knew were changing.

The She'an Rebellion broke out in Sichuan and Guizhou in the first year of the Tianqi.This war to suppress chaos lasted more than ten years in history. The war spread to the four provinces of Sichuan, Guizhou, Yunnan and Guangxi. The total number of casualties on both sides exceeded one million, and the loss of property was incalculable. This greatly accelerated the domestic situation in the late Ming Dynasty. collapse momentum.

Now that this civil war has entered its sixth year, although the frontline battlefield is far away in the mainland, it still inevitably has an indirect impact on the small town in the distant South China Sea, and the momentum of this impact has already spread to the Transmigration Group.Although it is not a sky-high price to raise the price of coal to two cents per hundred catties, what Tao Shi and the others thought of was the impact that the outage of coal supply would have on the production of the Crossing Group.

Schneider immediately asked, "What will happen to Yazhou if there is no coal coming from the north?"

Shopkeeper Zhang said with a bitter face: "Then everyone will only have to burn firewood to survive. However, the adults in your cliff office had the foresight to buy a lot of coal in advance and made a kind of coal called 'honeycomb'." The briquettes are very resistant to burning. I have seen that there are a lot of such briquettes stored in the Cliff Office, and I think they will not be troubled by this matter in the near future."

He Xi went to the big database to look up some historical materials at this time, otherwise he could have told the frustrated shopkeeper Zhang that this was not any foresight of the Cliff Office, it was purely something that Zhang Guang came up with on a whim.

Shopkeeper Li added: "Yazhou is short of coal, so it can only be shipped from farther away Guangzhou, and the price may double. If you still need to purchase a large amount of coal coke in the near future, I'm afraid you can only find a way from other places. "

Tao Donglai and Schneider looked at each other, both of them thought that the development plan of Hongji Port seems to be a rush to put on the shelves, and it has to be carried out in advance.Now the coal in Yazhou has risen to two cents per hundred catties, which is about four taels a ton, and the shopkeeper Li said that the coal shipped from Guangzhou may have to double this price, even if it is eight to ten taels a ton For the Transit Group, whose monthly coal demand is more than [-] tons, the expenditure that may be used for this procurement project is not a small amount.If the coal shortage lasts for a long time, the Transit Group will spend tens of thousands of taels of silver just to buy coal in a year. Calculated in this way, the cost of mining a coal mine by itself is still less than [-]. A little less.

(End of this chapter)