Chaling in the Persian Gulf, the colony of the Li family.
After the Li family's hard work over the years, Chaling has improved somewhat and is quite large. It has gradually transformed from the original barren desert area into a small oasis. Its population and scale have also exceeded the level of a small county town. There is a good
Tens of thousands of people.
Houses, ports, roads and other facilities are all available, the only thing missing is water.
In order to solve the problem of water sources, the Li family had to spend huge sums of money to customize several water transport ships to transport water from the Mesopotamia and Persia to solve the problem of Danshui.
As for growing food, it is basically impossible. The cost of growing food is cheaper and more cost-effective than directly importing food from the vassal states and colonies in Tianzhu.
Therefore, the Chaling colony has always been maintained by trade.
During the war in the Mesopotamia and Mesopotamia, a large amount of arms, weapons and food needed to be sold to the warring parties through Chaling. At the same time, a steady stream of slaves could be obtained from the Mesopotamia and Mesopotamia, which gave Chaling a great benefit.
development and made a lot of profits.
However, the British Crown Prince Zhang Mao also had a colony here in the Persian Gulf, and competition between the two sides also formed. This also caused the trade in Chaling to plummet, and the business became much worse.
As for the pearl fishing industry, the output of this thing is limited. Although the price is high, in general, it is better than nothing. There are many places around the world that produce pearls, and the price of pearls is also falling. This pearl industry cannot be counted on at all.
Food needs to be imported, water needs to be imported, and even raising some flowers and plants is difficult. It can be said that this place is really the beginning of hell mode.
That is to say, Li Dongyang's stepson Li Zhaofan had the idea of setting up a colony here. No normal person would take a fancy to this place.
Almost all the huge wealth accumulated by the Li family over the years has been invested in it, and now they are still maintaining their daily expenses without much profit.
The land has expanded to a large area. There are almost no people in the entire peninsula. They are all tribes in some oasis. They are poor and miserable. Who can be the opponent of the Li family, the Li family and the Zhang family too
Easily occupied large areas of land.
Of course, now it seems that these lands are also deserts, and they seem to be of no use.
In the Chaling Governor's Mansion, Li Zhaofan was overlooking Chaling.
After years of hard work by the Li family and a huge cost, a lot of trees have been planted in Chaling, so that it does not look like a bare desert area, but it is limited to Chaling.
Ten miles away, there is another vast sky full of desert.
"oil?"
“Can this thing really make a lot of money?”
Li Zhaofan was thinking.
Since half of the shares of Chaling Colony were sold to Daming Oil Company, Daming Oil Company sent people over and began exploring for oil everywhere in Chaling Colony.
As the exploration continued, we soon received exciting news that the Chaling Colony contained extremely rich oil resources.
Not only the Chaling colony, but also the Zhang family's colony here has discovered a large amount of oil reserves. The amount of oil contained here is extremely astonishing. Any piece of land can contain a large amount of oil.
This is something to be happy about.
However, Li Zhaofan always felt that this oil did not seem to have much money potential.
The price of oil is still very cheap now. A barrel of oil only costs more than 100 Wen. If it is in the mainland of the Ming Dynasty, it is quite acceptable. A barrel of more than 100 Wen will be released just like water. It will flow out.
It is rolling silver.
But this is the Persian Gulf, far away from the mainland of the Ming Dynasty. To transport oil back to the Ming Dynasty, the freight alone is sky-high, and oil is not easy to transport. Special oil barrels and cargo ships are needed for transportation. Traditional large ships are not suitable.
Used to transport oil.
All these have determined that even if there is abundant oil in the Persian Gulf, if it is shipped back to the Ming Dynasty for sale, even if it is sold for 200 Wen a barrel, it will be as useless to the Chaling colony and has no great significance.
.
"Unless the price of oil can rise to 300 yuan a barrel, it will be a real deal for us."
Li Zhaofan silently calculated the current oil prices and transportation costs, and finally came to the conclusion that unless the price of oil rose to 300 cents a barrel, there would be no money to be made from oil in the Persian Gulf.
Moreover, the premise is that new large steam freighters must be used to transport oil. If traditional large-scale ships are used to transport oil, there is still not much money to be made.
There is no way, the freight is too expensive. Sea-going ships are running on the sea, and it is more profitable to carry some goods casually than to carry oil.
"Governor, the people from the oil company are back."
At this time, someone came to report.
"Yes, please invite them over."
Li Zhaofan thought for a while and decided to ask about the oil trading house. They were in the oil business and they must know more about oil than he did. The key was that behind the oil trading house were Liu Jin and the prince.
Who is Liu Jin?
He is the God of Wealth who can turn stone into gold. He is optimistic about oil and even invested half of the shares in Chaling Colony. This means that he is really optimistic about oil, otherwise he would not invest in it.
Soon, people from Daming Petroleum Company came to Li Zhaofan's Governor's Mansion.
"Team Wang, what are the oil reserves in Chaling Colony?"
Li Zhaofan looked at Wang Fan in front of him. He was the person in charge of Chaling Colony sent by Daming Petroleum Company. His current main job was to explore for oil in Chaling Colony.
"The oil reserves here are astonishing. We can find extremely productive oil fields regardless of our exploration. This is very rare. When I was in Daming, I searched many places but could not find oil."
"I didn't expect that in this desert land, the oil reserves would be so amazing!"
Wang Fan quickly sighed: "It seems that there is more oil here than water, and the future is promising."
"Promising future?"
When Li Zhaofan heard this, he smiled and said: "This oil only costs more than 100 pence now. It is not easy to transport and it is far away from the mainland of Ming Dynasty. This price is not even enough for transportation. What future is there?"
"Master Li, you may not know this."
"Nowadays, kerosene produced from petroleum is used for lighting everywhere in the Beijing-Tianjin area, and new cars now burn gasoline and diesel. The gasoline and diesel are also obtained by smelting petroleum."
"You may not be able to see it now, but in a few years, these cars will be everywhere, and there will be more and more of them, and the demand for oil will become greater and greater. At that point, the price of oil will
It will naturally go up."
"What's more important is that there is very little oil in Ming Dynasty, and the oil reserves are very small. The oil reserves in other parts of the world are not too high now."
"And the development of automobiles will be faster and faster, and there will be more and more people. In the future, it will not only be our Ming Dynasty that needs oil, but our Ming Dynasty's colonies and vassal states will also need oil. Think about it, by then the whole world will need oil.
How much oil will be needed?”
"The amount of oil reserves here in the Persian Gulf is astonishing. It will definitely become the world's oil field in the future, and the oil produced will supply the needs of the world."
"At that time, Mr. Li can sit back and collect the money."
Wang Fan said with a smile.
Of course, people who are not in the oil industry don't know the future of oil yet, but Wang Fan knows it. Like other oil people, he has seen the bright future of oil.
What flows out of the oil well is not black oil, but white silver.
If there was an oil field on the Persian Gulf side of the Ming Dynasty, we could just sit back and collect the money.
"So, will the price of oil increase in the future?"
After hearing this, Li Zhaofan immediately smiled. It's good to make money. Only when you have money can you develop. Otherwise, the Chaling Monkey will only get rich every year. The Li family and fellow villagers from his hometown followed them. Until now, they are all here.
As for living a hard life, if he had immigrated to other vassal states or colonies, he would have lived a comfortable life as a landlord and wealthy man long ago.
"It will definitely rise, and the more cars we build, the more oil prices will rise. I believe it won't be a problem for oil prices to double in a few years."
"What we have to do now is to occupy as much land as possible in the Persian Gulf. Oil is everywhere here. Occupying more land means occupying more oil."
"I estimate that there is not only oil here in Chaling, but the oil reserves in other places must also be amazing. Now before everyone is aware of this oil, let's occupy more places."
"If the Egyptians, the Ottoman Empire and the Persians all knew the importance of oil and discovered that there is a lot of oil in the Persian Gulf, they would definitely not let us occupy the land wantonly."
Wang Fan said with great certainty.
"Well, what you said makes sense. We really need to occupy as much land as possible. Even though it's a desert, we still need to occupy as much land as possible."
After hearing this, Li Zhaofan nodded solemnly, then looked at the map of the Persian Gulf and the Middle East, and began to think about how to occupy more land.