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The first thousand seven hundred and twenty seventh chapter is blessed with America

The empire's overseas restrictions are very strict, but it still cannot stop many people who want money rather than their lives. Many of them secretly open factories in overseas territories and hire indigenous people to work.

Previously on Luzon Island, there was a bold man who opened up a large rubber plantation. This was nothing, but in order to save personnel costs, he secretly smuggled in hundreds of Annan natives to plant rubber.

The reason why he did this was naturally because if he hired people from the empire, the price would be very expensive.

But hiring indigenous people requires little or even no money.

Unfortunately, the Tang Empire strictly prohibited any person or institution from illegally employing indigenous people in any form.

Currently, only the four major labor service companies are able to hire indigenous people.

In addition, indigenous people with "Datang Temporary Residence Permit" are not subject to restrictions.

Then, if the Tang Dynasty people did these things outside the Tang Dynasty's control area, the officials would usually pretend they didn't see it, but if they did it inside the Datang control area, the consequences would be very serious.

Because this goes against the localization policy!

So, needless to say, this guy who illegally hired indigenous people to open up a rubber plantation was arrested as soon as he was discovered, and his property was confiscated.

However, even if this person is caught, there are still people doing it, and it is almost difficult to stop it.

After all, the cost of hiring indigenous people is too low, especially if they imitate Spain and directly hire a large number of slaves, even the last meager wages will be saved.

In this regard, the imperial officials actually have no good solution, except to intensify the crackdown.

In addition, there is also official control over some important industries, such as shipyards.

Even traditional hand-made shipbuilding is still very important. Overseas territories may not have factories, but they cannot do without shipyards, even if they can only produce wooden sailboats.

At the same time, because the shipbuilding industry is relatively important, private capital is not allowed to enter Datang's overseas shipbuilding industry at present. It is usually invested and constructed by enterprises affiliated to the Ministry of State-owned Enterprises.

The same is true for Xinnan Shipyard. The company's share structure is quite special. The three-level local finance departments of the American Affairs Office, Central Prefecture, and Xinnan County all have shares in it. In addition, Jiangnan Shipyard also owns certain shares.

However, it seems that the shares are dispersed, but in fact they are all official shares, and they are fully owned enterprises owned by the Ministry of State-owned Enterprises.

Thanks to the rapid development of the Americas, there is now an urgent demand for ships in the Americas.

In particular, the demand for inland river and offshore vessels is even greater.

If it is a steam engine ship, it is usually purchased from the mainland and then transported over. But if it is a small tonnage wooden ship, it is usually purchased and built locally.

Moreover, wood is plentiful and cheap in the Americas, and purchasing steel ships from the mainland plus the transportation costs is not cheap either. Therefore, the shipbuilding business of Xinnan Shipyard is still very prosperous.

However, as time has passed, especially with the continuous decline in steel prices, even if transportation costs are taken into account, ordering ships from the mainland is not much more expensive than ordering wooden ships from Xinnan Shipyard.

And such a small price difference is enough to make many people reconsider.

Under such circumstances, Xinnan Shipyard also began their self-rescue journey!

It is not feasible to directly build steam engines and steel ships. It is simply impossible for them to circumvent the restrictions of the Import and Export Commission, and they do not want to circumvent them.

After all, they are an enterprise affiliated with the Ministry of State-owned Enterprises. They will definitely not go around the restrictions of the Import and Export Committee when they have nothing to do. That would be too politically risky.

However, the current ship type is obviously no longer suitable. They plan to re-develop a new ship type that can more fully utilize the sailing wooden ship type.

Especially suitable for transportation on the inland rivers of the Americas and the Great Lakes region.

In recent years, the demand for ships between the New South River and the Five Great Lakes has been increasing, especially with the upcoming opening of the canal between the New South River and the Five Great Lakes. By then, the New South River will be able to be connected to the Five Great Lakes, and people traveling between this area will be able to

There must be more ships in the area.

In order to connect the New South River Basin and the Great Lakes Basin, the American Affairs Office launched a very large project many years ago, which was to build a canal to connect the Great Lakes and the New South River.

In order to reduce the cost of traveling from the eastern coastal areas to the central inland, it will provide transportation assistance for the further development of the central region and the completion of the localization of the central region.

In fact, the Great Lakes also have an outlet to the sea. Unfortunately, the river at that outlet is very fast and has many shoals. It looks like a big river, but in fact the navigation capacity is very poor and it is very dangerous. If it fails, it may result in a shipwreck and death.

.

And there is a super waterfall between the two big lakes...

The combination of many factors promoted the construction of this canal!

Of course, this canal, which is designed to be hundreds of kilometers long, seems very long, but in fact the designed transport capacity is very small. The designed water depth is only one meter and two meters, the top is only twelve meters wide, and the bottom is eight meters wide.

.

To be honest, in many places the water depth of the ditches used for irrigation water conservancy facilities is larger than this.

The reason why the design standards are so low is because this canal is designed to run small inland river vessels, especially inland river barges. These inland river vessels have very shallow drafts.

Another more important thing is the cost. Even though the specific construction is handled by the American Labor Service Company and the cost is low, it still costs money. Not to mention other things, the cost of recruiting labor is not low.

Therefore, in order to reduce costs, such a low standard was designed.

However, even if the design standard is low, it is enough as long as it can navigate small-tonnage ships. As long as it can navigate those inland barges of dozens of tons, in fact, for the Tang Empire, which has developed shipping capabilities, and a ship that can navigate thousands of

There is not much difference in the channels for large ships.

In fact, this canal was also a product of the American Affairs Office, which was used to replace railways when they could not obtain the construction of railways.

If railways could be built, the American Affairs Office would not need to engage in transportation at all and would just build railways.

However, due to import and export restrictions, railways cannot be built in America, so steam ships can only be used.

Even these steam ships are still heavily restricted. In fact, only a total of thirteen shipping companies in the entire Americas have obtained the authority to operate steam ships. Other institutions and individuals are not allowed to use these steam ships.

But it was finally possible to use steam engines and ships as the main means of transportation.

Otherwise, many crops grown in inland areas would not be transported at all!

They calculated that if there was a canal and steam engines were used for transportation, the transportation cost would be more than ten times cheaper than using horse-drawn carriages to transport goods now.

This also means that there will be a demand for a large number of inland river vessels in the Great Lakes region and the New South River region in the future.

They have no hope of using the small-tonnage barges used on the canal.

Canal barges may seem to be only a few dozen tons, but in fact they are highly technical. They are all ships using high-power steam engines, otherwise they would not be able to pull so much cargo. And neat ships, these are the private land of local shipyards, and their overseas territories.

The shipyard cannot build.

They had no equipment, could not purchase steam engines, and could not even obtain steel for shipbuilding.

However, inland river barges are actually composed of two types of vessels. One is the bow that drags a lot of unpowered barges forward, and then there are a lot of unpowered barges. Such small-tonnage barges are originally their

Specialties of Xinnan Shipyard.

A wooden small-tonnage unpowered barge is ok with no technical difficulty and low cost.

In addition, they are preparing to enter the Great Lakes ships.

The development of the Great Lakes has become very close at hand, and their Xinnan Shipyard does not dare to fall behind.

Judging from this canal and local development, it can be said that even though the Americas have been subject to many restrictions, their development still far exceeds that of other places.

Even relying on traditional handicraft industry, they are developing rapidly!

After all, the local natural resources are so rich that whether it is agriculture or traditional handicrafts, there is no need for the government to promote it. People can do it spontaneously and it will be very successful.

This kind of comparison can be said to hurt overseas territories elsewhere.

Especially in Africa, relying on a gold mine in the Nello area, they got a chance to localize, but even so, the empire's top officials only regarded this place as a pure gold producing area.

There is no talk of large-scale industrial development here.

Under this situation, the South African plains next door can still only develop agriculture and rely on maritime trade, but this difficulty is only relative.

In fact, the Tang Empire occupied overseas territories overseas, and there were many places where many people immigrated.

Abandoned the Nanyang Islands close to home.

In India, Africa and the Americas, they can be roughly divided into three types. One is strategic locations, such as Ceuta in Morocco, Hormuz in the Persian Gulf, Malacca, Sandalwood Island, Tierra del Fuego, and Ceylon.

wait.

The second type is simple supply ports, and there are many of them. Basically, the coastal ports in many places are occupied by the Tang Dynasty, but for these places, the Tang people usually only do supply work, basically

There will be no large-scale immigration development.

The third type is the colonies with relatively favorable natural conditions, including the Americas, the South African Plains, the Indian Go River State and other places.

Nowadays, the only places where Datang is allowed to develop and immigrate on a large scale are the plains of South Africa, the Go River State of India, and the Americas. The conditions in these places are actually pretty good.

Even better than many places in the country.


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