Rise of the 1630s South America

Chapter 443 Fine-tuning ([-])

February 1645, 2, Dongfang Port, sunny.

Shi Qinjie was wearing a blue cotton shirt dyed with natural dyes, and was sitting in the office of his old superior, former member of the executive committee, and current chairman of the National Modern Agricultural Development Promotion Committee, Jin Kela.Jin Kela had just returned from Qishanbao. He was here to investigate the development of the agricultural planting area there.

This time, two hundred Shandong immigrants and one hundred Polish women were allocated to Qishanbao. The place is at the mouth of the Yi River, and there are fertile estuary flood plains everywhere, except for a small area directly adjacent to Milin Lake. In salinization, only some salt-resistant fruit trees can be planted, and most of the rest of the land is very fertile.After some dredging work by the "Qingtangjun No. 1" dredger, the river is currently wide and deep, suitable for boats to navigate.The shallow silt removed from the dredging is a very good fertilizer, which lays the foundation for the farmland that has been reclaimed in the first year to have a reasonable harvest.

The local residents also set up many duck sheds made of reeds on the river near the river bank, and raised many ducks—just like the River Fort area in South Africa.Due to the abundant local food sources, the ducks grow very fast, which will surely create great economic benefits for them in the future.You must know that in today's East China Republic, the unit price of duck meat has far exceeded that of beef and mutton, so the prospect of raising ducks is still very good.Moreover, the duck's digestive tract is short, so the manure contains a lot of undigested residual nutrients. These duck manures fall from the duck shed to the river section surrounded by fishing nets below, which is also very good for fish farming.And this is also a proven and feasible method in South Africa.

"Whale bone meal is good, but it is more suitable for orchard planting." Zheng Bin took the pot of tea made by the secretary, filled the teacups in front of Jin Kela and Shi Qinjie to [-]%, and then said with a smile: " Whale bone meal is mostly phosphorus fertilizer, and a lot of nitrogen is fixed during the high-temperature cooking process, which is indeed a very good fertilizer. The key is that the quantity is still large, and a whale can provide several tons, which is very good.”

"Without fertilizer, there is no high yield." Jin Kela took a sip of tea and sighed comfortably.He is 42 years old this year. Because he often works in the field, his skin is much darker than those government officials who have been planning in the office all year round, and it is as good as those military leaders.

"Now the base fertilizer is entirely based on struvite bought from Peru through various channels, and the potash fertilizer is purely plant ash, which is very inefficient. I don't know what to do with the potash mine on the edge of Lake Gebot in the Red Sea. If it can be mined It's great. And the quantity of this whale bone meal is not enough at all. There are so many farmlands in the country, and an acre costs tens of catties. How many whales have to be killed. We only have one whaling ship now, um, count There are only two ships that have just entered service, which is completely unrealistic! Liming Town, Ping’an County is now developing orchard planting, and these whale bone meal will be exclusively for them in the future, don’t waste it elsewhere. It's a pity." Jin Kela continued, "The last time Qian Hao greeted me, he planned to plant oranges, apples, peaches, plums and other fruit trees on a large scale over there, and has planned several large orchards. With the increase in the income of ordinary people, their consumption demand for commodities such as fruits, especially urban residents, is gradually increasing. Therefore, the development of this project will not lose money, provided that everyone does not flock to the orchard project. The climate in Liming Town is also good, and the development The orchard planting industry has great potential! Therefore, it seems that the policy should be fine-tuned, and I think the whale bone meal will be allocated to Liming Town in the future."

Due to the bottlenecks in both shipbuilding capacity and sailors, although the three existing shipyards in the East Coast Republic have been expanded several times, they still only have 14 slipways and can only build [-] to [-] large ships each year.Although this data is quite good in the New World, there is still a big gap compared with the big European countries.

Among them, Zhenhai Shipyard, as the leading backbone, has 6 berths. If there is no technical transformation task, it can build 10-12 large ships (large clipper cargo ships, flute-shaped transport ships, warships, etc.) every year; It is the earliest old shipbuilding enterprise - Dayuhe Naval Shipyard, which has 4 slipways and can produce 7-8 large ships every year; and the last shipyard is naturally the latest modern special shipyard located in the inland river. Although this shipyard has a short history, it has developed very rapidly under the key investment of the state. At present, it has just expanded to 4 berths, and can build 4 immigration ships, 2 dredgers, and 2 whaling ships every year. In the case of maintenance and technical renovation of large ships.

目前几家船厂的船台基本上都已经满了，据统计，共有1艘战列舰（“国家意志”号）、1艘护卫炮舰、4艘大飞剪货船、4艘笛型运输船、2艘移民专用船、1艘捕鲸船和1艘挖泥船正在建造中，预计五月份开始将陆续交付给各使用单位。

Even at that time, there were only three whaling ships in active service. Excluding the break-in period, it was considered a good performance to catch a dozen or so whales a year.With such a small amount, it can probably provide 1 to [-] tons of fertilizer for the country. What can it be used for?Moreover, whaling is often a matter of luck. Since a sperm whale was caught in the second half of last year, it has been several months since Zhang Yun's "Hunter [-]" whaling ship. Like a blind cat bumping into a dead mouse, it ran into a fin whale in the waters off South Georgia Island, but there was nothing else to gain.

The reason why their catch rate is so low is not that there are not enough whale resources here, but mainly due to seasonal factors.Now that the southern hemisphere is in the midsummer season, the frozen Southern Ocean has already thawed in winter, and many whales that migrated to the warm waters in the north have returned to their birthplaces in large numbers to look for food.The next time they will appear intensively in the waters near the Falkland Islands, it will have to wait until after May.Therefore, hunting whales in this non-whale hunting season is really a thankless task. In many cases, it often depends on luck to harvest prey.

In order to change this predicament, Zhang Yun, the captain of "Hunter 1", even planned to drive this small tonnage whaling ship deep into the edge of the Weddell Sea in the south, preparing to go to the place where he often encounters. Try your luck in the frigid seas with floating icebergs.Before he set off, he even told Matthias, the mayor of Baleen Whale Harbor, that he was going to go there for an expedition, and named the unknown sea area he might encounter as his own name.

"Whale bone meal is indeed insufficient, and this is the only way to go. But when it comes to this, I don't think the orchard planting industry can absorb too many people." Zheng Bin, who has passed his thirties and has a beard After pouring a cup of tea, he sat comfortably on the mahogany armchair and commented: "At present, although our industry is developing very rapidly and the scale is getting bigger and bigger, except for several industries such as shipbuilding, textiles, and construction, which have absorbed a large number of Besides workers, other industries, including the fledgling leather processing industry, have a limited number of people to absorb. Moreover, industries such as machinery, chemical industry, military industry, and shipbuilding cannot be done by random people. The leaders of these factories are more inclined to recruit young people and then Carrying out a series of vocational education and self-cultivation, the number of people absorbed is really limited. It is very embarrassing for a large number of people who are neither educated nor young. The only way to resettle these people is agriculture besides the construction industry. Therefore, this agricultural work is still very important. Whether it is planting orchards, food or cash crops, or food deep processing industries, they are all the main channels to absorb low-quality and low-educated people. Among them, food planting It's better, it involves building new settlements, and it can also expand the country's territory, how good it is."

"Anyway, it's just this one project." Jin Kela smiled and said, "How many people are there in our country now? The only consequence of the swarming above-ground orchard project is market saturation, oversupply, and damage to the interests of fruit farmers. Therefore, this large-scale centralized orchard planting For the time being, there is only one project, and there is no semicolon. As for the behavior of farmers in other places to plant their own fruit trees, we neither advocate nor oppose it, and let the market guide them completely, and they can completely supplement the market demand."

"Hey, my great chairman, what time is this, and you two are still talking about these things. Let me settle my matter first. This is related to the future development and development of the two towns in the New China Colony. The well-being of thousands of people in the two places." Seeing Jin Kela and Zheng Bin sitting there and chatting about agricultural work in a decent manner, Shi Qinjie, who took the time to rush back to the mainland from Xinhua Port, was a little anxious. I saw him asking Jin Kela in a hasty tone: "What is the attitude of the superiors? You know, what I am talking about is the executive committee's opinion on the construction of the battleship 'Bayezid' for the Ottoman Empire." What kind of attitude? Do you agree or disagree? Boss Jin, I took the time to come back by boat, have you found out for me? The future of New China!"

"The situation is very complicated." Jin Kela put it off first, and after seeing Shi Qinjie's face changed, he sighed and said: "I saw the Ottomans bid so high, and the voice of support from the Executive Committee It's still quite big, and the possibility of passing is extremely high. But something happened just two days ago. The Governor General of the Kingdom of Spain in Peru sent a special envoy to our side to criticize us. It seems that the policy may be fine-tuned, and the sale of strategic weapons such as battleships to the Ottomans may be put on hold for the time being."

(End of this chapter)