Nanyang Storm 1864

Chapter 216: Keep a Low Profile

Taking advantage of his good mood and the company of the bright-eyed and white-toothed queen, he talked about some happy events during the meal.

King Zheng Guohui of Chu drank a few more cups without realizing it, and after dinner, he actually felt a little tipsy.

The queen was drunk and went to bed early.

Zheng Guohui would not rest so early. He took advantage of the alcohol to go to the study and looked at the huge map of East Asia hanging on half of the wall, especially the area around Hainan Islands. A happy smile from the heart bloomed on his face.

After years of hard planning, my wish finally came true!

In the eyes of King Zheng Guohui of Chu, the territory of the Great Chu Kingdom today is a joy that he can never get enough of, and is closer to him than his own son.

Dongmei came in quietly, refilled the teacup with water, and left quietly.

She is the favorite concubine of the King of Chu, and with the permission of His Majesty she can enter the study to serve him, but no one else is allowed to enter.

Zheng Guohui didn't care about Dongmei's coming and going. He walked to the huge map and examined it carefully without getting tired of it.

This huge map was drawn in proportion by comparing it with collected Spanish, Dutch and British maps, and is generally not much different from later maps.

Especially in the Hainan Islands (note: formerly the Luzon Islands), the appearance of most cities and county governments is clearly visible.

In the corners on both sides of the map, there are small maps of Europe and North America respectively, which are much simpler and not marked in such detail.

The total area of ​​the Hainan Islands is 30 square kilometers, and the Shangri-La Islands and the Solomon Islands together cover an area of ​​more than 80 square kilometers. The territory of the entire Great Chu Kingdom reaches 110 million square kilometers, which is definitely the foundation of the empire!

Zheng Guohui would not underestimate himself. He was extremely satisfied with the territory of the Great Chu Kingdom, which consisted of thousands of islands.

The British Isles cover an area of ​​only 24 square kilometers, but this did not prevent the British Empire from dominating the world for more than 170 years and entering the increasingly prosperous Victorian era.

This shows that the strength of a country does not lie in the size of its territory.

Rather, it lies in whether we can adapt to the development of the times, take the lead in meeting the impact of the steam industrial revolution, embrace new technologies that change the world, introduce technological achievements that integrate Chinese and Western cultures, and grow and develop ourselves.

at this point
The newly born Great Chu Empire possessed unique advantages, like a blank piece of paper on which brilliant pictures could be written.

The Great Chu Kingdom had no social groups whose interests were harmed by the impact of the steam revolution, no heavy historical burden, and its development foundation was the same as that of the current America, so it could go into battle lightly.

Compared with the United States, which is completely driven by capitalists, the development of heavy industry in the Kingdom of Chu was more strongly supported by the royal family and received special attention from the government, and it developed faster, more smoothly and more competitively.

Take the steel industry as an example

The No. 1 copper smelting blast furnace of Jinsha Iron and Steel Plant in Jinsha County has been put into production, and the No. 2 iron smelting blast furnace will also be put into production before February next year.

This will enable the Kingdom of Great Chu to achieve an annual output of more than 20 tons of advanced blast furnace smelting capacity. In terms of today's steel smelting level, advanced steel production capacity accounts for one-third of the total social production capacity, reaching the level of the French steel industry.

The only shortcoming is that the total steel production is only half of that of France.

But this situation will soon change. The plant facilities of the Batangas Steel Plant have been basically completed. The two sets of steelmaking blast furnace equipment that just arrived this month will be installed one after another, entering the substantive construction stage of the Batangas Steel Plant.

Planned for the end of next year
The No. 1 and No. 2 blast furnaces of the Batangas Steel Plant were put into production one after another. By the middle of the following year, the No. 3 and No. 4 blast furnaces were completed and put into production.

It is already the end of the year, and in two days it will be January 1867, . The blast furnaces planned to be put into production at the end of next year and the year after will take at most a year and a half.

Then by the end of the second quarter of 1868, the steel production capacity of the Great Chu Kingdom will double from its current level, and the total amount will exceed the current level of France, that is, an annual output of about 130 million tons.

This is the result of the efforts of the royal family and government of Da Chu, which has enabled heavy industries, mainly steel industry, to develop rapidly and quickly rise to become an industrial power in the Nanyang region.

The focus of the industrial development of the Great Chu Kingdom was to rely on the rich local mineral resources of gold, silver, copper, iron, coal, tin, etc., and to focus on the development of mining and steel smelting industries, thereby driving the development of a series of downstream supporting industries.

The main labor force for the mining industry came from the ever-expanding number of indigenous convicts.

By the end of this year

The size of the indigenous labor camps has skyrocketed fivefold, reaching nearly one million people. This has greatly promoted the construction of various infrastructure in the Hainan Islands and the development of the mining industry.

Dozens of mines across the Hainan Islands have commenced production, sending large quantities of raw materials to the Jinsha Steel Plant and the Batangas Steel Plant, where they are piled up like mountains at the plant sites, awaiting processing and smelting.

In these mining areas, traditional iron smelting furnaces, traditional copper smelting furnaces, and traditional tin melting furnaces appeared in large numbers, reaching hundreds.

Although these iron ingots, copper ingots and tin ingots smelted by traditional methods were of inconsistent quality, consumed a lot of ore, had a lot of smelting waste, were labor-intensive and time-consuming, and had low production capacity, they quickly became the mainstream of the Chu smelting industry.

The key was the abundance of slave labor and the inexhaustible supply of mineral resources. The Great Chu Kingdom could lavishly utilize these mineral resources in exchange for American machinery and equipment, British cotton and cloth, and mainland porcelain, tea, and silk, thereby developing its own economy and industry.

Zheng Xin, the Chinese Trade Representative to the United States, gradually opened up the situation in San Francisco, and his business network extended to Los Angeles, Seattle, Portland and the more distant heavy industrial areas of the Great Lakes, with remarkable development results.

However, with the influx of large quantities of supplies, the legacy of the American South American War was quickly digested, and the opportunities to get bargains in the future were greatly reduced.

In this world, the Great Chu Kingdom is not the only one that is smart.

When the American government was dumping war supplies, France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Austria and even the Ottoman Empire sent personnel to the United States to buy up the necessary supplies.

This includes firearms, artillery, ships and infantry equipment, and is a good opportunity to completely replace the equipment of your own army at a very low price.

The French Navy purchased 13 ironclad ships and an unknown number of sailing warships. It is said that the Netherlands and Belgium also purchased a batch of ships. The Ottoman Empire was mainly interested in infantry equipment.

The U.S. Navy's peak size of more than 500 warships and more than 6500 naval guns was rapidly reduced by % in less than two years.

Today, there are no more than 92 existing naval warships and more than 770 artillery pieces, which has basically reached the bottom.

In the early days

Zheng Xin, the Chinese Trade Representative to the United States, reached a credit loan agreement with the American-owned Wan Guo Tong Bao Bank, with a total loan amount of US$120 million, a term of 5 years, and an interest rate of 11.2%.

With this US dollar loan, I made a lot of money at the bottom.

Only then were they able to buy up a large number of bankrupt factory equipment, including 8 sets of steel blast furnace smelting equipment, a complete set of weapons production equipment and artillery production equipment, as well as a large number of iron steamships and sailing cargo ships including the 4683-ton giant ship "Stephen Battery", laying a solid foundation for the industrial development of the Great Chu Kingdom.

The second phase involves purchasing machinery and equipment from the United States. After they arrive with the transoceanic fleet, more machinery and equipment will arrive in succession in the future, and the process will last for at least half a year.

It can be said

The Kingdom of Chu was one of the biggest winners of the American Civil War. The other two big winners were naturally England and France.

In the United States, it is mainly Anglo-Americans who dominate the country's political, industrial and economic circles. The core is the original 13 British colonial regions. These Anglo-Americans constitute the core of the American upper class.

The unified America of the North and the South was more in line with the interests of capitalists and allowed England to expand its influence to most parts of North America. It was undoubtedly the big winner.

Not to mention France, which was the biggest driving force behind the independence of the United States. It not only contributed money, manpower and troops, but also launched fierce wars with the British all over the world. The French army and navy went all out.

As a result, France owed a huge debt, and the French Emperor Louis XVI lost his head for it...

Zheng Guohui withdrew his gaze from the map, turned around and walked to the window, from where he looked out at the Intramuros of Manila under the night sky, and the towering black shadows of spires one after another.

At this moment, his heart was in turmoil, and his whole body was filled with a strong sense of accomplishment, as if he was more tipsy and intoxicated than strong liquor.

Zheng Guohui's face was rosy, and his pair of deep eyes were frighteningly bright.

The flapping of his wings like a little butterfly in Southeast Asia has quietly changed the original trajectory of history, and the future is heading in an unpredictable direction.

The strategic goal of attacking the South China Sea Islands was successfully achieved, and the Great Chu Kingdom was overwhelmed at once.

Zheng Guohui secretly made up his mind

In the coming period, we should keep our heads down and digest the fruits of victory. The best strategy is to keep a low profile and slowly accumulate strength.

Once the development strategy for the next few years is clear, the rest will be easy.

I have an important meeting with the British Governor-General of Ord tomorrow, so I can't make things awkward like last time. I need to be more tactful.

The British High Commissioner for the Straits is the controller of the order in the South China Sea. This arrogant behavior is consistent with the arrogant image that the British have always given people, and they want to interfere in everything.

What impact will the rise of the Great Chu Kingdom have on the South China Sea region?

The Great Chu Kingdom's foreign policy, economic and trade policies, and whether it actively expanded through military force were all topics of concern to the British Straits Settlements Governor-General's Office and would be the focus of tomorrow's discussion.

Representatives from the French Governor-General of Saigon and the Governor-General of the Netherlands East Indies will also be present at tomorrow's important meeting. This is Governor-General Oude uniting the European powers to collectively put pressure on the Kingdom of Chu.

Zheng Guohui was well aware of this, but as a new regional kingdom, it was not yet strong enough to openly confront Britain, so it could only feign compliance.

There is no doubt that the development of the Great Chu Kingdom requires more time and broader space, and it needs to integrate into the international market.

(End of this chapter)