After all, in a place like a coolie camp, human nature is easily exposed.
No matter how well you pretended to be in the past, you will be lax and exposed later on.
In the end, Wang Haitao selected more than 400 recruits from pirates and pirate families.
This ratio is still very low.
But this is not surprising. After all, not all of the more than 3,000 people are pirates. There are only more than 2,400 pirates, and among the more than 2,400 people, there are more than 1,000 people over the age of 40.
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Wang Haitao didn't want the sailors he had worked so hard to train to have to retire after only a few years of service because of their old age.
Besides, there are quite a few pirates among them who are truly evil.
The Naval Academy is located in the reed marsh near the dock area.
In addition to deploying a group of skilled construction naturalized civilians from the construction team to help build houses and simple docks, Wang Haitao also mobilized a group of laborers from newly recruited naturalized civilians to assist the recruits in clearing the reed swamps.
As for training ships, we can only rely on captured pirate ships for the time being.
Just when Wang Haitao began to train the navy in full swing, the Provisional Management Committee launched the Shilu Plan.
There is no way to delay it any longer.
Even though Chen Liuxiang tried every possible means, the iron materials shipped from across the sea were still only a drop in the bucket.
The industrial group had to slow down the manufacturing speed of some machinery during this period.
No way, it’s hard for a clever woman to make a meal without rice.
Even if Fang Xiaoyue uses the ability of metal conversion to convert non-metals into metals every day, the output is always limited.
And some of the metals converted cannot be used for the time being.
For example, during the Lantern Festival, Fang Xiaoyue converted several tons of neodymium!
Neodymium is a rare earth metal and is an absolute good thing. It is widely used in aerospace materials. It can make permanent magnet materials, improve the high-temperature performance of alloys, and can be used in the laser field, etc.
But the industrial group can't use this thing for the time being, so it can only be stored in the warehouse until technology develops in the future.
Moreover, due to its relatively active chemical properties, this stuff is easy to oxidize and even burn at room temperature, so it needs to be stored separately, but this has caused some headaches for everyone in the industrial team.
In short, Fang Xiaoyue's special ability can be used in some experiments that are in urgent need of metals. If you want large-scale industrial production, don't expect it for the time being.
At least he can't produce hundreds of tons of steel in a day. If he can produce a few tons of steel every day, he must be very lucky, and there are a lot of other metals. As time goes by, I'm afraid he won't need to open additional mines for future industrial upgrades.
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Of course, it was all thanks to Fang Xiaoyue's ability, otherwise, the little iron material purchased by Chen Liuxiang would not be enough.
Not to mention anything else, just for the steel mills under construction, the steel needed is rising steadily.
But it won’t work without building a steelmaking plant. It’s impossible to keep making steel in small blast furnaces, right?
In that case, let alone the output, the quality of the steel produced is really difficult to control.
In order to promote the Shilu Plan, Sun Xuebin personally led a battalion of soldiers on several fishing boats one morning and headed for the mouth of the Changjiang River along the coastline.
They are the vanguard.
After they have controlled the Changjiang River outlet and landed at the corresponding location to establish a camp, the geological survey team formed in the dock area will set off.
It was already bright at this time. Standing on the bow of the ship, listening to the sound of the engine, Sun Xuebin looked at the sea in the distance, feeling inexplicably good.
I can’t help but feel bad. Although the development focus of the Provisional Management Committee is still on industry, it is precisely because industry needs iron ore, and the development of iron ore cannot be separated from the protection of the military!
Therefore, although the large-scale military construction that Sun Xuebin expected did not succeed, there were indeed more soldiers.
As of today, the total strength of the dock area has reached 2,200 people. Among them, there is a battalion of more than 200 people who went out to perform tasks in Jiaozhi Hongji. There are four battalions stationed in the dock area, with a thousand people. In the army recruit camp
There are still 500 people in training, and there are more than 400 people in the Naval Academy.
If we say that there are more than 15,000 naturalized citizens in the dock area in addition to the Chuanchuan people, the military force accounts for a large proportion of them.
But it’s not surprising. It’s just a special period. People like Chuanchuanzhong develop with technological power beyond this era, use scissors in business to harvest wealth, use advanced technology in agriculture, etc., and want to support a team of 2,200 people.
The army is not difficult.
The only thing that makes Sun Xuebin a little worried now is that the fuel in the fuel warehouse in the dock area seems to be used a lot.
According to the report given by Sister Qian Lihong of the logistics team at the last meeting, based on the current usage, the fuel inventory can last for up to half a year.
Of course, if the generators, cargo ships, and fishing boats are all stopped, there will be no problem in using fuel for more than ten years, but this is meaningless.
What the dock area needs now is rapid development, rather than standing still and waiting for the Qing army to come. By then, everything will be too late.
Since time was not too tight and we had to save fuel, the fishing boat ran at an economic speed of 8 nautical miles per hour for twelve hours, from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., before arriving at the Changjiang estuary.
In later generations, the Changjiang estuary was a relatively prosperous area, but at this time, the Changjiang estuary was a deserted land.
The mangroves spread for dozens of miles, during which white cranes and herons appeared one after another. Occasionally a big fish jumped out of the water, but it was a vibrant natural scenery.
If this is left to future generations, it won't be long before it can be easily developed into a 3A scenic spot.
However, Sun Xuebin had no intention of checking out the scenery at this time, but was waiting for the report of the reconnaissance team that came ashore to investigate.
Fortunately, everything went smoothly. Half an hour later, the reconnaissance team reported the situation of the ashore investigation through the intercom.
To put it simply, except for a nearby village, there are basically not many people here.
There is an oval gourd-shaped Jiangxin Island at the Changjiang River estuary, which divides the Changjiang River estuary into two places. There is also a long oval island in the river on both sides of the Jiangxin Island.
In the end, Sun Xuebin focused on the river bank on the west side of Jiangxin Island.
The reason is very simple. It is more remote here, far away from the villages on the left bank of the river, and is not easily exposed. Moreover, under the cover of Jiangxin Island and a small island on the west side, a semi-enclosed harbor is formed here, which is sheltered from the wind.
The performance is excellent, even if a hurricane comes later, you don’t have to worry about safety issues.
As for the landing, Sun Xuebin had personally trained several times before. At this time, the soldiers were riding in the small boat attached to the fishing boat, paddling the oars quietly and approaching the shore.