Chapter 137: Salt Field and Shipyard (I)

In the first few years of Dutch rule over Dayuan, by ruthlessly exploiting the natives, they harvested over a hundred thousand deerskins every year, all of which were eventually sold to Japan.

However, the good times didn't last. Just like the North American bison, the Canadian salmon... countless other examples, the natives, left with no choice, were forced into frenzied hunting. Within a few years, the deerskin trade was finished — the ecosystem was utterly destroyed, and even in later generations, it never recovered. After this, the Dutch began vigorously recruiting immigrants and developing sugarcane cultivation in Tainan to replace the deerskin trade.

The Transmigrators naturally wouldn't drain the pond to catch the fish. In their planning, all the island's indigenous inhabitants would eventually be relocated — vast plantations and pastures in the South Seas and North America lay waiting, where everyone could go and become plantation owners alongside the Ming People.

All natives under their rule would be scattered and colonized; this was a fundamental rule. The Transmigrators would certainly not allow the kind of foolishness where a hundred or so people suddenly remember they are an ethnic group and parade the streets demanding 'government' subsidies to ever happen again.

The deer herds on the island would also be preserved. At least in this plane of existence for the Transmigrators, the vast deer populations in the Taiwan Central Mountain Range and the coastal wetlands would survive happily.

Therefore, the amount of war reparations for the Ma Xiao Two Societies was a specific figure Professor Luo arrived at only after field investigations into the natives' material reserves. Moreover, he generously stated: to protect the ecology, the reparations could be repaid steadily, and extensions were permitted... with a little interest added.

Well, as the price for preserving their homeland and their elderly and young, the people of the Ma Xiao Two Societies, after their defeat, not only lost their able-bodied youth but also suffered an economic invasion worthy of HSBC, and would face heavy corvée labor in the future. The two societies were thus severely weakened in their essence and could no longer obstruct the Transmigrators' development plans.

And the Working Group's subsequent tasks remained very busy: they had to mobilize the natives to go south for slash-and-burn to open roads, coordinate the natives to go to Dayuan for daily trade, and also remain stationed in Madou, sending people to probe the neighbors in the northern Jiayi region — the Heanya Tribe.

Taiwan's terrain is easy to plan: a belt of plains surrounds the Central Mountain Range, like a skirt hem around the mountains. These skirt hems are naturally divided into individual blocks by streams and rivers. The Transmigrators' sphere of influence now spanned horizontally across the region between Xingang Creek and the Zengwen River. The next step in their expansion strategy was naturally the Jiayi region north of the Zengwen River.

One of Professor Luo's tasks on this trip was to investigate the strengths and weaknesses of the various societies under the Heanya Tribe in the Jiayi region, assessing the opponent's power, in order to prepare for opening up the next new map.

A militia-type unit like the Temporary First Battalion would certainly have a rest and reorganization period after this battle. The Soldiers could be considered to have fought a lucrative engagement this time; they would take their Work Points slips, redeemed on the spot, and go home happily, then await the next conscription.

The submission of the natives of the Ma Xiao Two Societies swept away the external obstacles for the three projects the Transmigrators were about to implement: salt production, shipbuilding, and agriculture.

The first to take action was the Salt Field.

Just a few days after the Madou Society's surrender, a labor team of 300 men began moving into a stretch of barren coastal shoal north of Xingang Creek, starting arduous labor — transforming the salt pans.

Leading the team was the Transmigrator Lu Haiyang. Before crossing over, this gentleman's old home was by Bohai Bay, right next door to the Yangkou Salt Field, making him arguably the only person among the Transmigrators with any understanding of salt fields.

In terms of technical content, developing salt pans actually posed no difficulty for the Transmigrators, who possessed various surveying tools and meteorological observation methods. The difficulty in salt production mainly lay in the labor force: even in later generations, with various mechanical aids, salt production remained one of the jobs with the harshest working conditions.

The Transmigrators' salt field team was naturally even more arduous, a case of truly starting from scratch. While developing salt pans on this mudflat, the 300 men led by Lu Haiyang also had to build docks, clear vegetation, fill in wetlands, and construct housing — a colossal amount of work.

The legendary barrel of Diesel was nowhere in sight, and it was impossible to run an electric cable from the Kiln District, so all the aforementioned projects had to be accomplished by manpower...

For now, transport to the Salt Field could only rely on sea routes, which was far more reliable than building a road through the wetlands and lagoons. The vessel carrying the labor team for the pioneering work was, naturally, the Yuan Dou. Besides some tools and provisions, the ship also carried a few Color Steel Panels, which could later be used to put up a Container House... This was probably the only form of moral encouragement Lu Haiyang received from the Great Office.

The Yuan Dou docked at the designated mudflat. The first group of 100 skilled laborers, specially selected and divided into 10 standard groups according to their dormitory assignments, began disembarking in an orderly fashion. One part unloaded cargo on the beachhead, while another part raised torches and began burning the wild grass: this was a matter of life and death. The laborers now clearly understood the Transmigrators' temperament; upon arriving at any location, clearing vegetation and filling in stagnant water were the highest priority tasks.

It was now the end of January in the solar calendar, the coolest part of winter in Taiwan. The Spanish were currently watching the rain in Taipei, while the Tainan Plain remained cloudless and sunny — there were still at least six months until the Tainan rainy season arrived in July and August.

This was the greatest advantage making Tainan suitable for solar salt production: the climate. The salt field team led by Lu Haiyang had to produce salt as quickly as possible in the coming time. Once a continuous supply of Salt was available, the Kiln District side was prepared to set up Electrolysis Equipment to produce some urgently needed chemicals.

Lu Haiyang and his 300 Warriors were going to be toiling on the earth amidst the blue wetlands, a very lonely prospect; in contrast, another Construction Site of the Transmigrators was much more lively, bustling with noise and teeming with rough, burly men — the Shipyard.

The Taijiang Shipyard was a long-planned project, yet the project proposal had always remained on paper, never put into practice. The reason was simple: a lack of shipbuilding materials.

Shipbuilding required large quantities of timber and Iron. After the Transmigrators occupied Dayuan, the Transport Fleet's highest priority for transport was always people and grain; timber and iron certainly never took precedence.

Once the Kiln Area Base opened, timber became an abundant product. However, the transport priority for iron materials remained low. Furthermore, the imperial court prohibited large quantities of iron materials from leaving the coast, so Dayuan had always been scraping by, relying on the Transport Fleet to sporadically bring in some handmade iron products and small amounts of iron material.

As a certain power base firmly established itself in Dayuan and its operations expanded ever wider, steel — specifically, using Ming Dynasty Pig Iron to refine modern steel — became a key link in the next phase of industrial development. Therefore, after the New Year Conference, the instructions issued by the Great Office to Hangzhou Station had clearly directed Hangzhou Station to find ways to increase the purchase of iron materials and adjust the future cargo ratios of the fleet.

After receiving an affirmative reply from Hangzhou Station, the Shipyard's Equipment and personnel began to be assembled; the most recent Transport Fleet to depart carried 15 tons of Pig Iron. Only after seeing the telegram did the Taijiang Shipyard officially break ground.