Chapter 1737 The explosion of the shipbuilding industry
Although the empire currently has many ships, they are actually still not enough. If a large amount of shipping capacity is to be diverted to the Southeast Asian countries for transportation, it will inevitably affect other aspects.
But this matter is also related to the empire's overall layout in Nanyang, so it must be done.
Once it is completed, within three to five years, except for a very small number of uncivilized cannibals and other savages, all the natives of the huge Nanyang Peninsula and Nanyang Islands will be relocated to Africa.
By then, the Tang Empire would be able to easily accept the entire Nanyang region and then carry out immigration.
Don’t worry about localization and other messy issues.
Therefore, even if the transportation capacity is insufficient, these Southeast Asian natives must be transported to Europe.
In order to solve the transportation capacity problem, the government directly came forward this time, and the Immigration and Reclamation Department signed relevant contracts with several major shipping companies.
These contracts included the hiring of shipping companies to transport indigenous immigrants from Southeast Asia to Africa, and also included the subsequent immigration of native immigrants from the empire for a decade or more.
At present, the Imperial Ministry of Foreign Affairs has signed relevant agreements with various countries in Southeast Asia. According to the relevant agreements, the Empire will provide related services for the subsequent immigration transportation of indigenous people from these countries.
Of course, just like other supplies, etc., these all require payment, and they are not cheap.
Naturally, the natives had no money, but that didn't matter, the Tang Dynasty could still provide loans.
Among this series of cooperation agreements, part of the final implementation still needs to be done by the Immigration and Reclamation Department.
Because in the Tang Empire, this organization was the only one that was best at carrying out this kind of large-scale immigration.
In order to do things, the Immigration and Reclamation Department naturally needs a large number of ships. Now, within the Immigration and Reclamation Department, except for a few large immigration ships, they have very few official immigration ships of their own. They all work directly with major shipping companies.
Cooperate to hire their ships, or provide them with shipping ticket subsidies, etc.
Nowadays, the transportation business in various countries in Southeast Asia is handled by the Immigration and Reclamation Department, which has signed relevant transportation agreements with several major domestic shipping companies.
According to this agreement, many large shipping companies in the empire will transport four to five million people from the Southeast Asian region to Africa in the next five years. At the same time, so many people will have to eat and drink on the way and after arriving in Africa.
Some of the sleeping materials they prepared themselves were materials they prepared to purchase from Datang. Of course, they also used loans.
With so many people and materials, the transportation capacity required is quite huge.
For this reason, major shipping companies have placed numerous orders with major shipyards.
And many of them are obviously temporary orders for emergency use.
For example, Pacific Lines, they are very smart.
They specially ordered a group of special transport ships. The tonnage of these ships is generally only about one thousand tons. Although they are powered by sails, their steam engines are all old-fashioned and small-power steam engines.
Then, the cabins of these ships are specially spaced and utilized to the maximum extent, allowing them to transport more people.
These specialized personnel transport ships of the same tonnage can transport at least three times more people than other passenger ships!
The most important thing is that these ships are very simple and have very low technical standards. Basically, they can be produced by any similar shipyard. Many shipyards along the Yangtze River can produce such ships.
Of course, the price is also very cheap
This is not the first time that Pacific Shipping Company has done this. They had already done this before when they accepted orders from Spain. Currently, their company has more than thirty such specialized low-cost transport ships.
Several major labor companies in the empire transported people to and from all over the world for the Spanish.
The reason for purchasing additional ships this time is because the company has repeatedly confirmed with the Immigration and Reclamation Department that this time the immigration operations from Southeast Asian countries will follow the method of transporting laborers to Spain.
The Imperial Shipping Law clearly stipulates that when a ship is carrying people, it must not be overloaded, and each passenger must be provided with corresponding safety protection, such as life jackets, lifeboats, etc.
Otherwise, you will not be able to pass the approval of the relevant yamen and obtain the relevant operating certificates.
This move was taken by imperial officials to ensure the safety of immigrants during their journeys.
The lives of the people of the empire are very precious. Even immigrants who have nothing are precious to the empire. They cannot be allowed to die at 10% or more after going to sea like the indigenous workers.
However, these relevant laws are naturally only used to protect the people of the empire, and the indigenous people are not within the protection scope of the empire's laws.
For example, in recent years, some Tang Dynasty merchant ships in Europe occasionally carry some European passengers to make a little money. At this time, no one cares about the traveling environment of Europeans.
At the same time, the Tang Empire has recently been helping the Spaniards transport indigenous people from various places to the Americas.
The environment was even worse. The ships provided by the early empire were all cargo ships. As for how many people the Spaniards packed into them, the Tang Dynasty did not care.
Anyway, they charge freight based on full load, not based on the number of people!
Later, the Spaniards still felt that the transportation cost was a bit high, so the Pacific Shipping Company built a special transport ship to help them transport labor.
Nowadays, the customers are not Spaniards, but countries in Southeast Asia, but it is still the same for major shipping companies.
Anyway, they collect money according to the number of ships. As for how many people the indigenous authorities of various countries put on the ship, the imperial officials will not care, and their shipping company will not care. Anyway, the ship is so big and the load capacity is so big. You natives love it.
You can pretend to be as many people as you want.
If you have the ability to fill the deck with people, that is also the ability of you natives!
The navigation performance of this kind of cheap transport ship is naturally not very good, and it is even dangerous in storms. Imperial officials have repeatedly warned the Pacific Shipping Company and several other shipping companies that have purchased similar ships.
Such ships that do not meet safety standards must not be used to transport the people of the Empire!
At the same time, the most adequate safety protection must be provided for the crew on the ship, such as lifeboats and the like.
However, although such cheap transport ships may not look good, they have been greatly welcomed by the Spaniards. Nowadays, countries in Southeast Asia are also very satisfied with this kind of ships specially built for them.
Because they are cheap enough, these ships seem to carry a lot of people, but they are still thousands of tons of ships. The actual riding conditions of the immigrants are still much better than those of sailing wooden ships of several hundred tons.