After listening to Qian Kang's suggestion, Zhao Xin pondered for a long time. He knew that if he didn't start solving the power problem, the industrial development of Beihai Town would soon enter a bottleneck period.

Speaking of which, if you want to establish a complete industrial system, the most important thing is to have heavy industries represented by military industry, which rely heavily on products produced by basic industries. Metallurgy, coal, petroleum, electricity, chemistry, machinery, and materials are all basic industries. Each of them is a large number of investors with huge investment, long construction cycles and a lot of energy consumption.

Now after seven or eight years of construction in Beihai Town, the first four categories have reached the scale of another time and space village-run enterprises, while the last three categories only solve the existence or not.

In addition to the lack of high-quality technical workers due to the inability to keep up with vocational education, the huge expenditure on equipment procurement also made Zhao Xin very troubled. He could only focus on the most urgently needed ones first, and drag others down if possible.

Qian Kang's energy storage power station plan seems very good, and the investment is still small. But what about the future? As the operating equipment increases, the power consumption during the day reaches full load, and some production needs to be adjusted to night. The peak-to-valley difference of power will become smaller and smaller, and in the end, it will still have to return to the fundamental problem of power plant capacity expansion.

To be honest, Zhao Xin actually really wants to expand the thermal power plant. The problem is that building a power plant is too expensive, often hundreds of millions or billions. Before, it cost him 500 million to have an installed capacity of only 60 megawatts. Now it needs to be expanded to 600 megawatts, which is equivalent to several times, nearly 11 tons of gold!

As of the end of 1793, there were five gold mining areas mined in Beihai Town, with an annual gold output of 5.7 tons. These include Lulenji Island, Hokkien Dance District, Urupu Island in the Kuril Islands, the Linga Mine Area in the South Kyushu, and the Huma Mine Area in the north of Heilongjiang City. In addition, there were more than five tons of gold purchased from various mining areas in Borneo in the past two years, and Beihai Town paid nearly 3 million Beihai silver dollars for this.

As for the Coloma mining area far away from the ocean, it has not been officially mined. Although the first 300-man Chinese miners in Borneo have arrived, their main work is to find the veins, build roads, and widen the river channel of the Rouyu River. During the previous exploring, Ruqi and his friends couldn't even pass through rubber boats, so let alone transporting gold ore out, mining equipment and grain supply into it was difficult.

The worst thing is that the gold in Zhao Xin’s hands cannot appear openly in the international gold market in another time and space. Every time, it has to be whitewashed through special channels. The other party will deduct 30% of the intermediate costs alone. Therefore, the actual investment in the expansion of the power plant must be about 16 tons of gold.

Zhao Xin doesn't have sixteen tons of gold. He now has less than five tons, more than half of which were saved up from his teeth over the years, mainly to ensure the salary of the travelers and recruit new people; the other four tons were mined in the first half of this year. The reason why the output has increased compared to last year is mainly because mining and excavation equipment and ten ore crushers have been added to the Lingka mining area this year.

In fact, the Ritsuka Mine Area is only the highest-quality in Asia, and the most gold mines belong to Southeast Asia; especially East Java, where gold mines are everywhere in Borneo and Papua Island, the world's largest "Glasberg Gold Mine" is on Papua Island.

The problem is that the natural conditions in Southeast Asia were too harsh this year, and most areas were undeveloped primeval forests; cannibals, diseases, transportation, and food supply were all difficult to solve. If you want to develop gold mines there, you would not be too much to send 500,000 people to go there. Therefore, Zhao Xin’s task to Wang Yuanfang was mainly to destroy the sultanate countries of all sizes and occupy the pit first.

All sides need money, and all need to use gold to purchase materials from another time and space to support development. In fact, Zhao Xin can't even get the money from the energy storage power station now. The batch of gold he has to pay for weapons and equipment for military expansion soon. The relevant transaction details were negotiated by Zhao Xin three months ago.

The Northern Navy has been developing for nearly ten years, and the total number of current troops has exceeded 170,000. Among them, the Navy has 18,000, the Army has 140,000, and the Logistics Support Force has 13,000.

At present, Liu Sheng and Fan Tong are in charge of the Western Front Corps with a total strength of 40,000, Deng Fei is in charge of the Eastern Front Corps with a total strength of 25,000, Sheng Haizhou is in charge of the Shandong Army with a total strength of 25,000, Wang Yuanfang is in charge of the Nanyang Army with a total strength of 15,000, Beihai Town is in charge of 10,000, and the remaining 25,000 are deployed at key points from Khalkha to Siberia like sprinkling pepper.

It is definitely not enough to enter the pass with just a small amount of troops. The total strength of the Qing Dynasty in the pass is around 600,000, of which the total strength of Zhili, Shanxi, Henan and Shandong is 180,000, and the total strength of the five provinces in Jiangnan is nearly 150,000. The 330,000 is only the number of Green Camp soldiers and Eight Banners soldiers in the economic system. There are nearly 100,000 local regiment training armed forces in the entire northern region.

Zhao Xin's plan was to increase the total strength of the Eastern Front Corps and Shandong troops to 250,000 by relying on Shandong's population advantage at the end of March 1795, so as to achieve the strategic goal of capturing the Central Plains and the five provinces of Jiangnan in one fell swoop.

Although the Northern Navy fought against the Qing army just as strong men beat children, even if they bullied people, tens of thousands of troops could not handle more than 700 counties. We can't fight down the front, and we will abandon the city and continue to the next one without caring, right?

After this year's summer offensive, Beihai Town's territory in Shandong has expanded to 43 counties in the five prefectures and 43 counties, with the corresponding total population exceeding 14 million. 2 million to 14 million, and the recruitment ratio is only 1.4%, which means that young and strong people can choose whatever they want.

Shandong in the middle and late Qing Dynasty was the area with the worst relationship between people and land in northern China, which was even worse than Henan. With the huge population explosion in the Qianlong era, the registered population in Shandong Province has exceeded 26 million, and the cultivation of suitable arable land was basically over the Kangxi period. What was reclaimed later were all the lands of river beaches and valleys, which were extremely barren, and there was no harvest in the years of floods and droughts.

Although Kong Shaoan has established farmers' associations in various places in Dengzhou, he redeems land from landlords and then rents it to landless farmers through cash and bonds; in fact, even if all the landlords and gentry in Dengzhou are defeated and all good and bad land are divided equally, the per capita arable land is only a little over three acres, and the average monthly grain possession is only 30 kilograms, which is simply not reaching the minimum survival demand line of 36 kilograms.

In order to solve the problem of insufficient food in Jiaodong, Beihai Town has transported more than 200,000 tons of grain to Dengzhou in the past two years. The military management committees in various places provide free lunches to children of appropriate age to encourage them to study; on the other hand, more than 200,000 farmers were recruited through the third-level farmers' associations in counties and villages to carry out public works, implement labor-for-relief, and build and improve a large number of infrastructure. The harbor alone has been newly built and expanded, and there are countless other projects such as river channel widening and silting, river dam reinforcement, farmland water conservancy, roads, urban drainage and other projects.

It is said that organized workers are the source of good soldiers, and organized farmers are also the source of good soldiers.

However, 200,000 people are easy to use, but 200,000 guns are not enough. You must buy them from the other side, and you cannot buy them along the side. All types of weapons must be purchased at 1.2 times the goods, and there must be spares.

Unlike the weapons used by the minions, the regular North Navy troops have always distributed semi-automatic and automatic weapons from another time and space, with the purpose of achieving weapon generation differences so that fewer people can bully more enemies.

When the committee held a meeting to discuss this matter, someone asked why we could not equip the "Type 1790 Rifle" but instead we had to buy weapons from another time and space?

Zhao Xin didn't need to take action personally, so Wu Siyu, who is the head of the Ministry of Military Affairs, explained.

Simply put, the training and combat rules of the flintlock weapon troops are quite different from those of the troops using semi-automatic weapons. This regiment cannot use the "three-three system" tactics, and that regiment can be used to line up and line up to kill. Besides, there are no more than 100,000 flintlock rifles in the logistics arsenal, and the amount of shots is more than 20,000.

Later, someone suggested "firing a gun after the installation of thunder and mercury" and Zhao Liang, the head of the military industry, refuted it with the history of gun development in another time and space. Then it was a completely heresy, don't insult me.

Qian Kang and Zhao Xin talked for more than an hour, and after talking about the expansion, they talked about equipment procurement. Zhao Xin was dizzy after listening patiently and carefully. He slapped out the unburned cigarette butts in his hand and said, "Old Qian, I will sum it up and I will give you a reply in a week."

"Okay, I'll wait for your news."

Qian Kang knew that Zhao Xin had difficulties, but the expansion of the army had nothing to do with him. He did not lead troops to fight in the 18th century! As the person in charge of the power outlet, once the power supply cannot keep up, he will be a dereliction of duty, so he must prepare for the future. If the electricity in another time and space is insufficient, it can be adjusted through the power grid, but where can he adjust this time and space? He can only solve it himself.

At present, the electricity consumption in Beihai Town is supported by two small thermal power plants and more than a dozen diesel generator sets, and the electricity consumption in oil fields and gold mines is completely dependent on diesel generator sets. The key is that the thing is not cheap, and a set of 1,800KW costs millions.

Zhao Xin got up and sent Qian Kang to the gate of the yard. When he came back, he was about to push the door into the room, a smoke came to his face, which made him cough. He and Qian Kang were smoking in the room, and they didn't feel it. They were choking when they came out and went in.

Zhao Xin simply asked the guard to open the door and dissipate the smell, and he walked back and forth in the yard. As he walked, he stopped in front of the tree pond on the southwest corner of the yard wall, hugged his arms, and became stunned at the few yellow bamboos in front of him.

The guard Chang Chai Rugui sometimes frowned when he saw him, sometimes his eyes narrowed slightly, and sometimes he sighed. He knew that this person must have encountered something difficult, and was thinking of a way, so he gestured to the guards around him.

At this time, except for the wind blowing, birds singing, and bamboo leaves rustling, there was no other sound around. I don’t know how long it took, Chai Rugui’s ears moved and suddenly heard footsteps coming from outside the yard, and it was getting closer and closer. Soon, a "salute" command sounded, and then the thick gate of the yard was pushed open. Ding Guofeng, wearing a dark green military coat, walked in, followed by a guard, carrying a bag of things in his hand.

"Salute!" The guards in the yard saluted in unison.

Ding Guofeng smiled and raised his hand to return the favor. At this time, he had noticed Zhao Xin who was standing still. After taking a closer look, he couldn't help but feel happy, so he joked: "Oh~~ You are going to learn from Wang Yangmingge Bamboo! Why are you starting to pursue the spiritual world? This is not good, you have to wait for brothers to make progress together. How did you say something? It's really good to be happy for everyone."

Zhao Xin said laughing and cryingly: "I haven't seen you for a few days. You are so good at talking. Are you worried about me?"

"If you have nothing to do, you can't come and have a look?" Ding Guofeng nodded to the guard behind him and said, "I just finished prescribing medicine from the hospital, and I thought about coming over and wandering around. Are you having trouble?"

In front of the guard in the yard, Zhao Xin did not answer, but instead said: "What do you say about Dr. Wu?"

Ding Guofeng said helplessly: "I have to eat a few pairs, and I have to continue to make it even if I steamed my sweat."

After returning from South Asia, this person's health has been not very good. He can't get up to his energy every day, has stomachache from time to time, and is too lazy to move. He doesn't even attend the committee meeting. According to Wu Xianhou, a master of traditional Chinese medicine in Beihai Town, this is because he stayed in India for too long and was too humid in the rainy season, so external dampness enters the body. As the saying goes, "A thousand colds are easy to remove, but it is difficult to remove any dampness." If the dampness is not removed, no matter how much tonic you eat, it is useless.

The two entered the house. Zhao Xin was about to make tea, but Ding Guofeng said there was no need, so he slowly took out a thermos cup from his coat pocket and explained that it was the coix seed and red bean water boiled by his wife. He would drink this now if he had nothing to do.

This chapter is not over, please click on the next page to continue reading! "Oh~~! Why do I think you are now in the development of 101? Do you have to ride in the car tomorrow to fall asleep? Tsk tsk, the sick tiger, oh, no! It's the sick king."

Since the previous year, the nicknames of Liu Sheng, Wang Yuanfang, Deng Fei and Ding Guofeng among the four travelers have changed. They are known as the "Four Heavenly Kings of the Northern Navy" and each town is one side. It turns out that Zhao Xin is about to be upgraded to become emperor, and King Kong is about to advance to the Heavenly King.

"Ahem! Can you chat happily?" Zhao Xin's counterattack suddenly came, and Ding Guofeng was caught off guard and almost choked without swallowing a sip of water.

"Come on a cigarette. By the way, do you have gum here? It's a troublesome to smell it when you go home later."

Wu Xianhou prescribed medicine for Ding Guofeng to start with regulating lungs, so he asked to avoid smoking. His wife Xue Wu was the head nurse at Beihai Town Central Hospital and knew this clearly, so she mobilized her family to watch him from top to bottom, from nanny to guard. Ding Guofeng was so desperate.

Zhao Xin threw the cigarette and the lighter to each other, handed the gum in the drawer over, and said with a smile: "I can't smoke at home, so I'm here to get a cigarette."

"That's what we say, who will follow us with?" Ding Guofeng lit a cigarette, took a few sips with satisfaction, and asked again: "How is the progress of the expansion of the army?"

"Kong Shaoan and Sheng Haizhou both promised me that the source of troops is fine, as long as the racks are in place on time."

The so-called "straight regiment" is a military framework with only officers and no soldiers, including regiments, battalions, companies, platoon officers, deputy positions in charge of political and publicity, and communication personnel. According to the principle of "three-three system", a straight regiment must have a scale of 120 people. 200,000 new recruits are 80 regiments, so the number of people in the straight regiment is 10,000.

Now half of the personnel who have been drawn from each unit to form 80 "raid regiments" are being in place, and are rushing to various parts of Shandong to form new troops, and then training will be started immediately.

It is no exaggeration to say that the task of expanding the army is extremely arduous. It is the first large-scale expansion of the Northern Navy in history. It is now the end of September, and there are still 5 to 6 months left before the start of spring next year. Before the beginning of winter, the military management committees of Jiaodong counties will have to build barracks and training grounds. Kong Shaoan and Sheng Haizhou are now so busy that they can only sleep for three or four hours a day.

"Hurry up and take care of your health. If Xiao Kong is tired, you have to go to Shandong to help you with it for a while." Zhao Xin hesitated for a moment, and then said, "I always feel restless lately, and it seems something is going to happen."

Ding Guofeng blew up the ashes and said curiously: "What happened?"

Zhao Xin shook his head: "I don't know. If only I knew."

"You were standing outside in a daze just now and thinking about this?"

"Where is it! It's all for money!" Zhao Xin smiled bitterly and roughly explained the matter that Qian Kang was looking for him.

Ding Guofeng finished listening silently, took the cup and sucked it and drank two sips of water, blinked, and suddenly said, "Boss Zhao, just listen to what I said. If you don't listen, just think I fart."

"If you have farts, please let it go."

"I think you are a bit of a liberal in the procurement of materials. In the past, there were few people and small territory. You used to buy things from Andrew with the money you exchanged for antique gold. After buying it, you still have a lot of money left. But now your family is big and you can use gold to fill Andrew's bottomless pit to make a fortune. Have you ever thought about using other methods?"

"What's the meaning?"

"When I got home during the Spring Festival, I was free and used my phone to browse the news. I just had the little plane and warship in Okinawa. As long as you, Boss Zhao, take it away with you, touching and taking it away!"

Zhao Xin narrowed his eyes and looked at Ding Guofeng with great interest and asked, "What's the matter?"

"Then I'll sell it. A plane is not worth a ton of gold?" Ding Guofeng said with a smile, and began to suck the water again.

"You have something to do?"

"Stop teasing, I have to have that connection. When I was demobilized and returned home, I could have nothing to do all day long? Okay, the time is almost over, it's time to go home and take medicine."

Ding Guofeng said, buckled the lid of the cup and tightened it, stuffed a piece of chewing gum into his mouth, then got up and walked to the hanger to put the cup back in his pocket. He picked up the coat and draped it on his shoulders. He saw Zhao Xin sitting behind the table motionless and looking at him, shook his head and said, "I'll say it, I'll listen. In fact, it's not just the plane that can be sold, right? Stop sending it, I'll leave myself."
Chapter completed!